Sunday, April 29, 2012

Here is That Secret Gnosis Evolutionists Have

In the previous post we learned that evolutionists have a secret gnosis. They say science must be limited to naturalistic explanations (the so-called methodological naturalism), yet their science knows no limits (the so-called property of completeness) and is presented as a reasonably accurate model of reality (the so-called property of realism). Now there’s nothing wrong with constraining science to methodological naturalism, but what if there is a phenomenon that is not natural? Then the methodological naturalism constraint could not provide an accurate explanation. We would either have to avoid such phenomena (incompleteness), or we would have to settle for inaccurate explanations (anti realism). But evolutionists do not settle for such limitations. How can they mandate method (specifically methodological naturalism) and yet enjoy completeness and realism? The answer lies in their secret gnosis, of which we give an example here.

SIDEBAR: Does evolutionary science really entail completeness?

One evolution professor wrote to me that evolutionary science does not claim completeness. Evolutionists readily agree that phenomena may lie outside the realm of strict naturalism. Is that true?

One sure sign of incompleteness at work is a scientist, when grappling with a difficult problem, allowing for even just the possibility that the problem may not be strictly naturalistic. One would expect these scientists to be found, at least on rare occasions, discussing the boundary between naturalism and non naturalism, even if they are not sure where it lies or even if there are any non naturalistic phenomena. But such conversations are hard to find amongst evolutionists.

And it is not as though they don’t have their share of hard to crack problems. After all, there is no scientific evidence that something (in this case everything) comes from nothing, as they believe. Nor does science support their rather heroic contention that life and all the millions of species arose spontaneously. There certainly are no easy answers for consciousness but again, evolutionists rush in, where wise men fear to tread, with their unlikely explanations.

Evolutionists don’t even hesitate when it comes to the origin of the universe itself. And when problems arise they even call upon a multitude of universes—the so-called multiverse. From multiverses to the origin of life and emergence of complexity, evolutionists evidence little awareness or concerns about potential incompleteness limitations.

So how did this evolution professor defend his claim that evolutionary science does not claim completeness? Believe it or not, his source was that fount of knowledge, the famous Judge John Jones, as though the judge was now an authority on the subject. Yes, this is the same judge who, regarding his preparation for the Dover trial, explained that “I understood the general theme. I’d seen Inherit the Wind.”

One of the many examples of the evolutionist’s secret gnosis comes from an essay written by Theodosius Dobzhansky entitled “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” It is a fitting example because that title has become a popular phrase in the evolutionary literature, including the popular literature and peer-reviewed research papers.

In that essay Dobzhansky rehearses the typical theological naturalism (i.e., theological arguments mandating a strictly naturalistic creation narrative) which is endemic to the evolution literature. For instance, Dobzhansky explained that the fossil record reveals many extinctions, and while this would be understandable under evolution, it would make no sense for God to do this:

but what a senseless operation it would have been, on God's part, to fabricate a multitude of species ex nihilo and then let most of them die out!

Or again, can we really believe that all existing species were generated by supernatural fiat a few thousand years ago, pretty much as we find them today? For “what is the sense of having as many as 2 or 3 million species living on earth?”

The beauty of natural selection is that it does not work according to a foreordained plan. But it would make no sense for a Creator to intentionally create the species we find. As Dobzhansky explains:

Was the Creator in a jocular mood when he made Psilopa petrolei for California oil fields and species of Drosophila to live exclusively on some body-parts of certain land crabs on only certain islands in the Caribbean?

Echoing Kant from centuries ago, who theorized of creation by natural means to avoid a capricious Creator, Dobzhansky explains:

The organic diversity becomes, however, reasonable and understandable if the Creator has created the living world not by caprice but by evolution propelled by natural selection.

And what about the fundamental biochemistry built into the species? Again, evolution is mandated for intentional design and creation of such a pattern is offensive to us, as Dobzhansky explains:

But what if there was no evolution and every one of the millions of species were created by separate fiat? However offensive the notion may be to religious feeling and to reason, the anti-evolutionists must again accuse the Creator of cheating. They must insist that He deliberately arranged things exactly as if his method of creation was evolution, intentionally to mislead sincere seekers of truth.

These are the types of powerful religious arguments that motivate and justify the evolutionary thought. It is all about metaphysics. Evolution must be a fact and so, of course, evolutionists enjoy completeness and realism along with their methodological naturalism. This is their secret gnosis.

I didn't know that. So can you provide a few citations where evolutionists discuss that, due to the many evidential problems, it just maybe/could be possible that the subject at hand may not be amenable to naturalism, and as such they need to tread carefully, for they may have crossed the line.

"I didn't know that. So can you provide a few citations where evolutionists discuss that, due to the many evidential problems, it just maybe/could be possible that the subject at hand may not be amenable to naturalism, and as such they need to tread carefully, for they may have crossed the line."

It is your assertion that "they" do, so you need to produce the citations in which "they" do so.

You seem to have a problem with excluded middles Cornelius!

Not claiming that science provides a complete description of reality is not the same as claiming that it does/may, not!

Cornelius, I think you agree (although I am not sure of this) that scientific methodology is intrinsically restricted to natural explanations.

If so, why would you want scientists to "tread carefully" lest they "cross a line"?

The line that scientists risk crossing every day, and it is the only line that matters, is the line over which the predictions arising from their hypotheses are not supported.

The only penalty for crossing that line is the penalty of having to rethink their hypothesis. It isn't one that scientists are, or should be "careful" not to cross. It's one they are, and should be, courageous enough to risk crossing whenever they derive a hypothesis.

If they find that the hypotheses they are deriving from their theories are consistently unsupported by new data, then they need to rethink their theories. Again, this is not a risk they should shirk taking. But a non-natural theory is not a scientific theory, and cannot be. So even were the fundamental tenets of evolutionary theory to be falsified tomorrow, that would not mean that scientists would be justified in saying "oh boy, this one can't be amenable to natural explanations".

All they would be justified in saying would be: "oh boy, back to the drawing board".

Having said that, of course, the fundamental tenets of evolutionary theory have not been falsified, and on the contrary, the theory provides a framework in which successfully supported predictive hypotheses are generated all the time.

So can you provide a few citations where evolutionists discuss that, due to the many evidential problems, it just maybe/could be possible that the subject at hand may not be amenable to naturalism, and as such they need to tread carefully, for they may have crossed the line?

Can you provide examples of people doing so with the theory of gravity?

Can you provide examples of people doing so with Germ Theory?

Can you provide examples of people doing so with the theory of heliocentrism?

No scientific theory claims to provide a complete explanation of reality.

Confusion of the issue: Gravity is observable today. Germs are observable. The planets are observed today orbiting the sun. The "warm little pond" is not observable. That specified complexity arises only from intelligent causes is observable. That specified complexity arises by accident or necessity has not observed although much storytelling explaining such is observed. In other words, there are no evidence problems with gravity, germs or planets orbiting so of course there will be no such citations. But where are the citations from Darwinists speculating ad infinitum about the unobservable past?

you keep saying … evolutionists "insist" that science can provide complete explanations of reality. They don't.

I don’t recall that. Perhaps I mistyped. I don’t think most evolutionists probably think much about this (may not even understand it). But that’s the problem. It is not that they “insist” anything about completeness, but rather that there is no thought given to the problem that, gee, if I’m constraining science to a particular method, then it is at least a *possibility* that I may be excluding certain phenomena. So when I analyze those problems, I’ll get the wrong answer. So I’m either going to have to forfeit a guarantee of completeness or of realism. One of two must go. But evolutionists don’t think much about this, and this is rather obvious in (i) their fact claims and (ii) their addressing problems such as consciousness, ethics, origin of universe, etc.

You seem to take issue with this, but you apparently can’t provide examples where evolutionists address this issue.

It is your assertion that "they" do, so you need to produce the citations in which "they" do so.

How can I provide citations for something that doesn’t exist? AFAIK, Evolutionists don’t address this issue. Perhaps I’m wrong, but that would require a citation of a paper which I have never seen. Kind of difficult for me to produce such a citation.

Or, I hope you are not doubting that evolutionists apply their theory to the full gamut of topics, such as ethics, consciousness, origin of the universe, etc. Is that what you want citations for? I’m not quite following.

No scientific theory claims to provide a complete explanation of reality.

Well we're talking about evolutionary thought. So in order to make your point convincing, you need to provide an example of a phenomena that evolutionists would say "Oh yes, that is probably not understandable with MN. We'd have to become anti realists, like Descartes, to attack that problem with MN."

I've read much evolutionary literature and I've never seen anything like that. But maybe I'm missing something. Can you provide an example?

Well we're talking about evolutionary thought. So in order to make your point convincing, you need to provide an example of a phenomena that evolutionists would say "Oh yes, that is probably not understandable with MN.

No, because to make a statement like that, one would have to acknowledge that there IS something beyond the material world. Which is something scientists - as scientists - can never professionally do.

And that is not merely 'evolutionary thought'. That is 'scientific thought'.

No, you've missed the difference, even though I capitalised the key word! The key difference is not that between "science" and "scientific methodology" (although in the context of my version, the second is more precise) but between "must" and "is":

The first is an imperative. The second is is merely an acknowledgement the limitations inherent in the methodology.

Or the second could be someone's opinion. Since we are splitting hairs, we should also provide precise definitions for 'naturalistic' and 'non-naturalistic'. And let's not forget to also provide a precise definition for 'supernatural'.

"One evolution professor wrote to me that evolutionary science does not claim completeness. Evolutionists readily agree that phenomena may lie outside the realm of strict naturalism. Is that true?

One sure sign of incompleteness at work is a scientist, when grappling with a difficult problem, allowing for even just the possibility that the problem may not be strictly naturalistic. One would expect these scientists to be found, at least on rare occasions, discussing the boundary between naturalism and non naturalism, even if they are not sure where it lies or even if there are any non naturalistic phenomena. But such conversations are hard to find amongst evolutionists."

Why would "one expect" this? What use would they be? This is where the "science stopper" argument has force. Given (which I think you accept) that scientific methodology is limited to the natural, any such conversation would be tantamount to this: "I dunno, Prof, this looks pretty intractable - is it worth applying for another grant, or do you think we just chalk it up to God?"

Scientific methodology does not allow for the conclusion: this event had a non-natural cause. It only allows for the conclusion: we cannot explain this event. To consider the possibility that there is no natural explanation is therefore simply to consider abandoning that line of research. Not that lines of research aren't abandoned all the time, but you don't need to assume a non-natural cause to do so.

"And it is not as though they don’t have their share of hard to crack problems. After all, there is no scientific evidence that something (in this case everything) comes from nothing, as they believe. Nor does science support their rather heroic contention that life and all the millions of species arose spontaneously. There certainly are no easy answers for consciousness but again, evolutionists rush in, where wise men fear to tread, with their unlikely explanations.

Evolutionists don’t even hesitate when it comes to the origin of the universe itself. And when problems arise they even call upon a multitude of universes—the so-called multiverse. From multiverses to the origin of life and emergence of complexity, evolutionists evidence little awareness or concerns about potential incompleteness limitations."

This writer seems to be using a very idiosyncatic definition of "evolutionists". He seems to mean "scientists" in general. Is s/he suggesting that scientists should not continue to investigate these questions? If not, what is s/he suggesting?

Discussions of, and engaging the topic of incompleteness, would resolve precisely the problem we are discussing. Evolutionists mandate MN. I understand you believe they have no choice. That is not true, but be that as it may. It doesn’t matter. Regardless of how MN arises, it is there. And given the MN is there, you then must either forfeit the guarantee of completeness, or of realism. You can’t have all three (without some metaphysics). Evolutionists do have those metaphysics, which allows them to have all three.

But you believe that evolutionists in fact do adhere to incompleteness. Well OK, that certainly would solve the problem. If that is true then I would need to modify or delete the post, and take back what I said.

But now you ask: What use would such discussions [of incompleteness] be? Is it not obvious that such discussions would prove your point?

This is where the "science stopper" argument has force. Given (which I think you accept) that scientific methodology is limited to the natural, any such conversation would be tantamount to this: "I dunno, Prof, this looks pretty intractable - is it worth applying for another grant, or do you think we just chalk it up to God?"

Right, that is the argument. Straying from naturalism is a “science stopper.” So this isn’t exactly helping your contention that evolutionists adhere to incompleteness. After contending this, you are now pointing out how awkward it would be.

Scientific methodology does not allow for the conclusion: this event had a non-natural cause. It only allows for the conclusion: we cannot explain this event.

And so it might be non naturalistic. So where are such discussions to be found in the evolution literature?

As always, Cornelius, I appreciate your engagement in this conversation, especially given your evident frustration with it!

That said....

"Discussions of, and engaging the topic of incompleteness, would resolve precisely the problem we are discussing. Evolutionists mandate MN. "

All scientists "mandate" MN. That's their working tool. You must have done the same when you did your PhD.

Unless you mean something other than "use" by "mandate".

"I understand you believe they have no choice. That is not true, but be that as it may. It doesn’t matter. Regardless of how MN arises, it is there. And given the MN is there, you then must either forfeit the guarantee of completeness,"

Of course. Methodological Naturalism aka the scientific method gives no guarantee of completeness. It does not even deliver reality, only approximate models of it.

"or of realism. You can’t have all three (without some metaphysics)."

No, you can't.

"Evolutionists do have those metaphysics, which allows them to have all three."

And this is what you keep asserting. No, "evolutionists" don't "have those metaphysics".

Some individual scientists may well hold the metaphysical position that all possible explanations are natural, but it is not claim intrinsic to evolutionary science. Evolutionary science can proceed perfectly happy with only the limited working assumptions entailed in methodological naturalism viz that the universe is predictable. It is only a working assumption, and need not be true to deliver useful results, which it does.

"But you believe that evolutionists in fact do adhere to incompleteness. Well OK, that certainly would solve the problem. If that is true then I would need to modify or delete the post, and take back what I said. "

Well, it depends who exactly you include in the set "evolutionists". But given that you generalise your conclusion not just to evolutionary science but science itself ("religion drives science, and it matters) then yes, you are most certainly incorrect in claiming that "evolutionists" believe that naturalistic explanations are necessarily complete.

Firstly, the assumption of completeness is not required to do evolutionary science, merely the working assumption that the world is predictable, whether or not this assumption is true.

Secondly many evolutionary scientists (the theists being an obvious group) do not assume it it is true.

"Right, that is the argument. Straying from naturalism is a “science stopper.” So this isn’t exactly helping your contention that evolutionists adhere to incompleteness. After contending this, you are now pointing out how awkward it would be."

You are missing my point. I'm not saying that accepting that in principle, scientific explanations may be incomplete is a science stopper. I'm saying that concluding that a specific phenomenon has a non-natural explanation would be tantamount to simply dropping scientific investigatin in that area on the grounds that god-probably-did-it.

Let me ask you a question, Cornelius: what would you do, as a scientist, were you to conclude that a particular phenomenon you were investigating had no natural explanation? Would you continue to research it? Or would you simply drop it, and embark on a different scientific project?

If the former, what method would you use? If the latter, in what sense would the conclusion of "non-natural cause" not be a "science stopper"?

"And so it might be non naturalistic. So where are such discussions to be found in the evolution literature?"

I doubt you'd find them anywhere in the science literature because they are out of the domain of science! Scientific conclusions stop at "we don't know". If you want a discussion of non-natural explanations, then you need to look at the theology and metaphysical literature :) And there's plenty of that, from Teilhard onwards!

> Scientific methodology does not allow for the conclusion: this event had a non-natural cause. It only allows for the conclusion: we cannot explain this event. To consider the possibility that there is no natural explanation is therefore simply to consider abandoning that line of research. Not that lines of research aren't abandoned all the time, but you don't need to assume a non-natural cause to do so. <

Quantum mechanics (according to the standard interpretation) holds that not every event has a physical (i.e. naturalistic) cause.

CH, why do you constantly single out "evolutionists" to harp on when it's all of science that's affected the exact same way by the claims you are making?

I think it all comes down to whether or not some scientists are willing to infer the existence of something that their instruments cannot measure directly. The point that Hunter makes (and it is a valid one) is that evolutionists are not simply admitting incompleteness but are insisting that naturalism (what can be measured) is all there is. They want everybody to accept that since there is no way to directly detect a designer, then it must be concluded that there was no designer. That's where evolutionists begin to wallow deeply in metaphysics and superstition. ID proponents are simply saying that if design can be detected (and it can), then we can infer that there was a designer whether or not we can detect this designer.

This is analogous to the problem of motion in physics. Physicists have never explained why two bodies in relative inertial motion remain in motion. Newton, like Aristotle before him, knew that motion was causal but ultimately ascribed the causality of motion to God. Since the physical cause of motion is not directly detectable, does that mean it is supernatural or beyond the reach of science? I dare say no. There are many things in science (I can provide examples, if asked) that are not directly measurable but their existence are nevertheless accepted by scientists. Indeed, if one applies causality to motion, one is forced to infer that normal matter is immersed in an immense lattice of energetic particles without which nothing could move. In the not too distance future, we will learn how to tap into this energy field for both propulsion and energy production.

I think it all comes down to whether or not some scientists are willing to infer the existence of something that their instruments cannot measure directly. The point that Hunter makes (and it is a valid one) is that evolutionists are not simply admitting incompleteness but are insisting that naturalism (what can be measured) is all there is.

2. Again, why does that claim apply only to the theory of evolution and not all fields of scientific study?

They want everybody to accept that since there is no way to directly detect a designer, then it must be concluded that there was no designer.

That is false. Science only says since there is no positive evidence (either direct or indirect) of a Designer there is no reason to posit one. Like all scientific conclusions, the conclusion is tentative and open to modification pending the introduction of new evidence.

"Quantum mechanics (according to the standard interpretation) holds that not every event has a physical (i.e. naturalistic) cause."

Do you think physicists regard quantum effects as having "non-natural" explanations?

If so, then Cornelius needs a different word.

My own view is that "non-natural" truths is undefined. I don't know what people mean by it, but many clearly mean something, and I took Cornelius to mean something that did not include quantum mechanics.

Perhaps I was wrong.

I'd say that what science does is to discover what is predictable about the universe, no more, no less, and that predictability can be either deterministic or probabilistic. At a quantum scale it turns out to be probabilistic.

Anything predictable, therefore, I'd call "natural", and discoverable by science. Miracles, however, are not predictable, and not therefore discoverable by science. We could call them "non-natural" or "super-natural" - it's up to whoever wants to posit them to label them as they wish.

But if they exist they are undiscoverable by science and therefore cannot be ruled either out nor in by scientific methodology.

"I think it all comes down to whether or not some scientists are willing to infer the existence of something that their instruments cannot measure directly."

No instruments measure anything "directly", but some measurements are more "direct" than others. But all measurements are proxy measurements and all are subject to measurement error. Not least is the limiting factor of our own perceptual apparatus.

"The point that Hunter makes (and it is a valid one) is that evolutionists are not simply admitting incompleteness but are insisting that naturalism (what can be measured) is all there is. They want everybody to accept that since there is no way to directly detect a designer, then it must be concluded that there was no designer. That's where evolutionists begin to wallow deeply in metaphysics and superstition."

You are generalising at best from a very small and unrepresentative sample of "evolutionists". Those few may indeed have deeply held metaphysically positions, but those positions cannot be ascribed to the field of evolutionary science, which neither requires, nor makes any such assumptions nor draws any such conclusions.

"ID proponents are simply saying that if design can be detected (and it can), then we can infer that there was a designer whether or not we can detect this designer."

Yes, I know. And I agree that design can sometimes be detected. I don't agree that the signature of design that ID proponents have delineated is, in fact, the unambiguous signature of intentional design. I think it is the unambiguous signature of biology. Which doesn't really help.

"This is analogous to the problem of motion in physics. Physicists have never explained why two bodies in relative inertial motion remain in motion. Newton, like Aristotle before him, knew that motion was causal but ultimately ascribed the causality of motion to God. Since the physical cause of motion is not directly detectable, does that mean it is supernatural or beyond the reach of science? I dare say no. There are many things in science (I can provide examples, if asked) that are not directly measurable but their existence are nevertheless accepted by scientists. Indeed, if one applies causality to motion, one is forced to infer that normal matter is immersed in an immense lattice of energetic particles without which nothing could move. In the not too distance future, we will learn how to tap into this energy field for both propulsion and energy production."

I like the point I think you are making here. Ultimately, I don't think science is about inferring "causality" at all, although that is an important aspect of what we do. I think it's about making predictions. Calling the fact that phenonemon A seems to be contingent on phenomenon B can be described as "causality" but that's really just a manner of speaking arising from our own relationship with time. Once we start examining the nature of time itself, the whole question of causality becomes moot, I suggest, and we are simply left with prediction.

Which is why, incidentally, I don't think William Lane Craig's Kalam argument works :)

2. Again, why does that claim apply only to the theory of evolution and not all fields of scientific study?

Who said anything different? Are you sure you're running on all cylinders?

Me:

They want everybody to accept that since there is no way to directly detect a designer, then it must be concluded that there was no designer.

Thorton:

That is false. Science only says since there is no positive evidence (either direct or indirect) of a Designer there is no reason to posit one.

Science never said that. Evolutionists do, however. That's what I meant by "they". The evidence for design is blindingly obvious. That you are oblivious to it and go out of your way to hide it is not a problem with science but reflects your own biases and political agenda.

Evolutionary science can proceed perfectly happy with only the limited working assumptions

Yes, agreed. But again, I’m referring to what is, not what ought to be.

Firstly, the assumption of completeness is not required to do evolutionary science, merely the working assumption that the world is predictable, whether or not this assumption is true.

Yes, again, agreed. You seem to be consistently envisioning an idealized type of evolutionary theory. I’m referring to what actually is, not what ought to be.

Let me ask you a question, Cornelius: what would you do, as a scientist, were you to conclude that a particular phenomenon you were investigating had no natural explanation? Would you continue to research it? Or would you simply drop it, and embark on a different scientific project?

How about we change the question to: “what would you do, as a scientist, were you to conclude that a particular phenomenon you were investigating *likely* had no natural explanation?” Because I’m not sure one could ever conclude conclusively.

I would be inclined to continue to research it. But of course time constraints might force me eventually to drop it. But either way, what is important is that I would not have a problem in honestly and accurately reporting the results. I would not falsely report that some naturalistic explanation is a fact, or is likely, or some such. I have no problem in following the data where it leads, whether that is to a naturalistic explanation or otherwise.

If the former, what method would you use? If the latter, in what sense would the conclusion of "non-natural cause" not be a "science stopper"?

To continue to research I would have to get creative, and try to think of some explanation that had not been considered. As for dropping the research and the problem of it being a “science stopper,” let me explain.

First, it seems to me that we need to report results honestly and accurately. Just because a result defies naturalistic explanation shouldn’t lead us to sweep that under the rug and simply describe the results in terms of naturalistic explanations, as evolutionists do, even though the fit is terrible. There should be no fear of honestly reporting results.

Second, the whole “science stopper” is a ruse. Newton wasn’t hampered by the fact he believed God created the world. In fact, theists have been motivated by the thought that God was behind whatever it was they were studying. Let’s take SETI as an example. Let’s say I’m studying signals from a distant star system, and I discover a brilliant, meaningful signal. And since evolution is astronomically unlikely, I certainly don’t think the civilization that created the signal just spontaneously evolved. So I’m not thinking that MN applies here. This signal is not easily chalked up to MN. That in no way is a science stopper for me. I’ll be trying to understand what exactly the signal means. I’ll be frantically searching for more signals from that source. I’ll be refining my search algorithm. I’ll start searching for other, similar star systems, and start collecting signals from them as well. Etc, etc.

Personally I’m not interested in that kind of science, but this evolutionary argument that non naturalistic causation is a science stopper is just a silly canard used to underwrite their religious beliefs.

> Do you think physicists regard quantum effects as having "non-natural" explanations? <

Depends on what you call a "naturalistic" explanation. As I see it, a naturalistic explanation is a physical explanation.

> I'd say that what science does is to discover what is predictable about the universe, no more, no less, and that predictability can be either deterministic or probabilistic. At a quantum scale it turns out to be probabilistic.

Anything predictable, therefore, I'd call "natural", and discoverable by science. Miracles, however, are not predictable, and not therefore discoverable by science. We could call them "non-natural" or "super-natural" - it's up to whoever wants to posit them to label them as they wish. <

The probabilities of a truly probabilistic event are predictable; the actual outcome of a truly probabilistic event is not predictable. Therefore, according to your own definition of what constitutes a naturalistic event, we must conclude that quantum events are not truly naturalistic events because they are not truly predictable.

Quantum mechanics (according to the standard interpretation) holds that not every event has a physical (i.e. naturalistic) cause.

I presume you are talking about virtual particles. If so, your sentence is technically correct. But they do not therefore conclude that their cause is un-/sub-/super- natural. They conclude that these particles are uncaused.

> I presume you are talking about virtual particles. If so, your sentence is technically correct. But they do not therefore conclude that their cause is un-/sub-/super- natural. They conclude that these particles are uncaused <

Agreed. But the bottom line is that the Copenhagen interpretation (a.k.a. the standard interpretation) holds that all matter/energy reduces to physically uncaused events. That's part and parcel of quantum mechanics. How one interprets that is certainly an open issue. And of course, there are a plethora of "interpretations of quantum mechanics."

> Nevertheless, the point remains that quantum mechanics has not falsified materialism, naturalism, or given us any reason to allow the un-/sub-/super- natural into the scientific method. <

I disagree. Both the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics have falsified materialism.

Merriam-Webster defines "materialism" as "a theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter."

Clearly "physical matter is not the only or fundamental reality." And clearly all "processes and phenomena can not be explained as manifestations or results of matter."

> Indeed, do you really grasp exactly what it would take to falsify materialism? <

Yes I do.

First, I would have to define the theory (which I have already done).

Merriam-Webster defines "materialism" as "a theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter."

Next, I would have to furnish evidence which discredits the theory (which I have already provided).

Claim: "Physical matter is the only or fundamental reality."

Refutation: Quantum mechanics holds that nature is fundamentally dualistic. Therefore, physical matter is NOT the only or fundamental reality.

Claim: "All being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter."

Refutation: There is no physical explanation (in theory) for either quantum indeterminacy or quantum entanglement. Therefore, all processes and phenomena can NOT be explained as manifestations or results of matter.

> Indeed, do you really grasp exactly what it would take to falsify materialism? <

Yes I do.

First, I would have to define the theory (which I have already done).

Merriam-Webster defines "materialism" as "a theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter."

Next, I would have to furnish evidence which discredits the theory (which I have already provided).

Claim: "Physical matter is the only or fundamental reality."

Refutation: Quantum mechanics holds that nature is fundamentally dualistic. Therefore, physical matter is NOT the only or fundamental reality.

Claim: "All being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter."

Refutation: There is no physical explanation (in theory) for either quantum indeterminacy or quantum entanglement. Therefore, all processes and phenomena can NOT be explained as manifestations or results of matter.

Refutation: Quantum mechanics holds that nature is fundamentally dualistic. Therefore, physical matter is NOT the only or fundamental reality.

Wrong. Wave-particle duality is not the same as there being more than one 'fundamental reality'. The duality here is in the behaviour or particles - that it can exhibit properties of both waves and particles. But this all takes place in the same 'fundamental reality'.

Claim: "All being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter."

Refutation: There is no physical explanation (in theory) for either quantum indeterminacy or quantum entanglement. Therefore, all processes and phenomena can NOT be explained as manifestations or results of matter.

If there is no explanation for something then it is a mystery. That is all. Having a puzzle for which materialists have not yet worked out an answer is not the same as having evidence which disproves their theory.

> Wrong. Wave-particle duality is not the same as there being more than one 'fundamental reality'. The duality here is in the behaviour or particles - that it can exhibit properties of both waves and particles. But this all takes place in the same 'fundamental reality'. <

The duality here is a duality between the physical and the nonphysical. The "wave" here refers to a "probability wave" - a mathematical abstraction representing a nonphysical realm of potentialities or possibilities. That's what you're failing to grasp.

"It is important to resist the temptation to regard electron waves as waves of some material substance, like sound waves or water waves. The correct interpretation, proposed by Max Born in the 1920s, is that the waves are a measure of probability...The fact that electron waves are waves of probability is a vital component of quantum mechanics and in the quantum nature of reality."

> If there is no explanation for something then it is a mystery. That is all. Having a puzzle for which materialists have not yet worked out an answer is not the same as having evidence which disproves their theory. <

Quantum mechanics holds that nature is fundamentally indeterminate. This is what the theory says. So, to deny this is simply to deny quantum theory (your promissory materialism notwithstanding).

"According to this interpretation, the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is NOT a temporary feature which will eventually be replaced by a deterministic theory, but instead must be considered a FINAL RENUNCIATION of the classical idea of "causality"." (emphasis mine)

At the moment I can perform an experiment because I assume the world is run by natural laws. If, say I see an apple fall to the ground, I can summize that there is a force pulling the apple down. I can then run experiments.

I can set up lots of equipment to measure dropped objects. I can then tweak one variable at a time to see the effect this will have. Will a red ball fall faster than an otherwise identical green one? Will a heavy ball fall faster than and otherwise identical lighter one? These are tests I can do to find out about this 'pulling down' force.

But notice I am assuming that this force is regular and measurable. I am assuming naturalism.

But if what you are telling me is correct, how can trust the results of my own experiments? If there are non-materialistic forces in the world, how can I ever be sure that my experiments were not saboutaged by one? How am I ever to do science if I have to reason to trust my own work?

as to this: 'but what a senseless operation it would have been, on God's part, to fabricate a multitude of species ex nihilo and then let most of them die out!'

So instead of any substantiating scientific evidence for neo-Darwinism,,,

Where's the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism?https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q-PBeQELzT4pkgxB2ZOxGxwv6ynOixfzqzsFlCJ9jrw/edit

We get very bad theological arguments? Have these theologians, who pretend to be scientists, ever heard of 'the fall of man'? Or of 'the reach of the Cross?'

The Reach of the Cross By William A. DembskiExcerpt: Certain biblical images indicate that the suffering of the Cross cannot be confined merely to the few hours of Christ’s earthly passion. Once Jesus has resurrected, he has Thomas place his fingers in the wounds that were inflicted on the Cross. Ask yourself, What is a resurrection body doing with the marks of crucifixion? And why, in the book of Revelation, is Christ portrayed as a lamb that was slain?There’s no indication in Scripture that the redeemed of Christ will in eternity exhibit any marks of suffering from their life on earth. And yet our Lord bears these marks in eternity, and is referred to, in Revelation, as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Clearly, then, the sufferings of Christ transcend his torture by the Romans.http://www.designinference.com/documents/2006.10.the_reach_of_the_cross.pdf

Man's fall into sin and the resultant broken relationship with God, universal Death, and God's victory over death on the cross, ARE the primary subjects of the bible. So instead of neo-Darwinists fabricating stories that death presents a problem for Theism, perhaps they would do well to tell us exactly how material particles, which are dead, can give rise to conscious life, or any perceived microbial life at all for that matter.

Here is substantiating evidence that man's present conscious choices can effect past events (thus providing a 'mechanism' for death preceding the fall of man);

Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past - April 23, 2012Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a "Gedankenexperiment" called "delayed-choice entanglement swapping", formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice's and Bob's photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice's and Bob's photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor's choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. "We found that whether Alice's and Bob's photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured", explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study.

According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as "spooky action at a distance". The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. "Within a naïve classical word view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events", says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html

further note:

the argument for God from consciousness can be framed like this:

1. Consciousness either preceded all of material reality or is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality. 2. If consciousness is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality. 3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality. 4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality.

Three intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material realityhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1G_Fi50ljF5w_XyJHfmSIZsOcPFhgoAZ3PRc_ktY8cFo/edit

"The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass."Richard Swenson - More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12

i.e. Speed of light travel, to our temporal frame of reference, is still not completely transcendent of our framework since light appears to take time to travel from our perspective. Yet, in quantum teleportation of information, the ‘time not passing’, i.e. ‘eternal’, framework is not only achieved in the speed of light framework/dimension, but is also ‘instantaneously’ achieved in our temporal framework. That is to say, the instantaneous teleportation/travel of information is instantaneous to both the temporal and speed of light frameworks, not just the speed of light framework. Information teleportation/travel is not limited by time, nor space, in any way, shape or form, in any frame of reference, as light is seemingly limited to us. Thus ‘pure transcendent information’ is shown to be timeless (eternal) and completely transcendent of all material frameworks. Moreover, concluding from all lines of evidence we have now examined; transcendent, eternal, infinite information is indeed real and the framework in which ‘It’ resides is the primary reality (highest dimension) that can exist, (in so far as our limited perception of a primary reality, highest dimension, can be discerned).

In the previous post we learned that evolutionists have a secret gnosis.

This is a strawman. I've never seen such a claim _ not to some sort of secret knowledge - nor can it be reasonably inferred from the assertion of methodological naturalism.

They say science must be limited to naturalistic explanations (the so-called methodological naturalism), yet their science knows no limits (the so-called property of completeness) and is presented as a reasonably accurate model of reality (the so-called property of realism).

This all depends on how you define naturalism. Yours is somewhat vague although that also seems to apply to some others here.

In my view, for what it's worth, it refers to understanding the world by the study of the natures of things where the nature of something is what makes a thing itself and not something else. Thus, a god if such exists, would have nature, be a part of the natural world and be something which could be studied using methodological naturalism. The same would be true of any phenomenon which is observable by us even in principle.

They say science must be limited to naturalistic explanations (the so-called methodological naturalism), yet their science knows no limits (the so-called property of completeness) and is presented as a reasonably accurate model of reality (the so-called property of realism).

By my definition of naturalism, science is limited only to what we can observe in the broadest sense of obtaining information about however indirectly. There may be parts of our Universe or other universes which are completely beyond the range of what we can observe so there is no claim to the property of completeness.

As for the "so-called property of realism", neither science in general nor a particular branch like biology nor the scientific method are models of anything in themselves. The first two are fields of study and the last is a methodology employed by those working in those fields. The methodology is used to generate models of the phenomena being studied in those fields. The value of those models is determined by the extent to which they are observed to correspond to what they are modeling - analogous to the correspondence theory of truth in philosophy.

Now there’s nothing wrong with constraining science to methodological naturalism, but what if there is a phenomenon that is not natural?

Reading around your writings available on the internet (I'm afraid I have not read your books) you seem to have the interesting thesis that a prime motivator of evolutionary theory was as solution to the Problem of Evil, and that this still pervades evolutionary science, whether pursued by atheists or theists. Would this be a fair summary?

If so, then would I be right in saying that when you say "religion drives science, and it matters" are you really talking about oldfashioned religion, not using the term to describe atheism?

In which case would it not be better to say that "theology drives science, and it matters"?

I would agree (if this is what you are saying) that to a theist, particularly a Christian, evolution does provide a satisfactory solution to the PoE, or at least forms part of a satisfactory solution to the PoE, which is why, presumably, a large number of Christians (including the entire catholic church!) have accepted it, rather gratefully.

Nonetheless, however appealing a scientific theory may be to someone with a religious (or even anti-religious) point of view, the test of a scientific theory is not whether we like it, but whether it fits the data.

This is why I consider your mantra that "religion drives science, and it matters" to be completely wrong as a statement of fact. I would agree that when religion drives science, we should double check the fit of model to data! And possibly the spoons. I would also agree that religion, and indeed any ideology, including political ideology, sometimes drives (or attempts to drive) science, as in the suppression of Galileo and the torture of Bruno by the church, the suppression of Relativity by the Nazis, and the promotion of Lysenko by Stalin. So yes, I would agree that it matters that ideology (including religion and anti-religion) does not drive science.

But that is precisely my objection to creationist "science" and to ID. That it is driven by ideology and religion, not by data. So the question then arises, is evolutionary science also "driven" by ideology? I'd say most certainly no, and that you arguments that it does simply don't hold water IMO.

All that "drives" science is methodological naturalism, which is not an ideology at all, but simply an intrinsic limitation of the method.

Of course scientists can be, and are, biased, and have pet theories, and explanations that they "prefer" (on aesthetic grounds, sometimes) to others. But the ultimate test of any theory is the data it accounts for and the success of any predictions made by hypotheses derived from it.

That is what drives mainstream science, not "religion", thank goodness.

Reading around your writings available on the internet (I'm afraid I have not read your books) you seem to have the interesting thesis that a prime motivator of evolutionary theory was as solution to the Problem of Evil, and that this still pervades evolutionary science, whether pursued by atheists or theists. Would this be a fair summary?

Yes, thanks. To elaborate just a bit, the POE is a convenient motivation to identify because people are at least vaguely familiar with it, and it makes sense that the POE could influence one’s views on creation. But in fact there are a dozen or so, often interrelated or overlapping, metaphysical motivators. The POE, while powerful, is actually in the minority. This illustration gives a rough overview of the history of thought involved:

http://www.darwinspredictions.com/Figure15.jpg

If so, then would I be right in saying that when you say "religion drives science, and it matters" are you really talking about old fashioned religion, not using the term to describe atheism?

Yes, atheism is not influential in evolutionary thought. We’re talking about religion, not atheism. Call it “old fashioned” if you like, sure.

I would agree (if this is what you are saying) that to a theist, particularly a Christian, evolution does provide a satisfactory solution to the PoE, or at least forms part of a satisfactory solution to the PoE, which is why, presumably, a large number of Christians (including the entire catholic church!) have accepted it, rather gratefully.

Well this is particularly peculiar to Christians. They were in charge of things as modern science got going, so evolutionary thinking in its modern form traces to them. But theistic arguments such as the POE are important for non Christians, including atheists.

Nonetheless, however appealing a scientific theory may be to someone with a religious (or even anti-religious) point of view, the test of a scientific theory is not whether we like it, but whether it fits the data.

But that’s not how evolution works.

This is why I consider your mantra that "religion drives science, and it matters" to be completely wrong as a statement of fact.

When I say religion drives science, that is simply an objective observation of evolutionary thought. I’m talking about an “is,” not an “ought.”

I would agree that when religion drives science, we should double check the fit of model to data!

Well we never even did the single check, to say nothing of the double check. Evolution is a “fact” due to religious concerns. The claim doesn’t come from science.

So the question then arises, is evolutionary science also "driven" by ideology? I'd say most certainly no, and that you arguments that it does simply don't hold water IMO.

Yes, evolution is driven by metaphysics. Evolution is claimed to be a fact, and the arguments/demonstrations for that claim, while very powerful, are religious. There is no demonstration for that claim that is not metaphysical. If there was one, then I would take it all back and join in the celebration.

All that "drives" science is methodological naturalism, which is not an ideology at all, but simply an intrinsic limitation of the method.

No, I’m afraid it is not that simple. You seem to be unaware of evolutionary thought.

Of course scientists can be, and are, biased, and have pet theories, and explanations that they "prefer" (on aesthetic grounds, sometimes) to others. But the ultimate test of any theory is the data it accounts for and the success of any predictions made by hypotheses derived from it.

Oh, no, not at all. If that were true then evolution would have been dropped long ago.

Me: Nonetheless, however appealing a scientific theory may be to someone with a religious (or even anti-religious) point of view, the test of a scientific theory is not whether we like it, but whether it fits the data.

You: But that’s not how evolution works.

It's certainly how evolutionary science works! (I'm being cautious here because the naked word "evolution" can be very ambiguous).

CH: When I say religion drives science, that is simply an objective observation of evolutionary thought. I’m talking about an “is,” not an “ought.”

Well, I think you are making an unsupportable generalisation from a small unrepresentative, and, indeed, misunderstood, sample! Certainly when you put it in the present tense. You may well be right, historically, but ultimately the test of a scientific theory is whether it delivers successful hypotheses, and evolutionary theory emphatically does.

CH: Well we never even did the single check, to say nothing of the double check. Evolution is a “fact” due to religious concerns. The claim doesn’t come from science.

Me: a) I think you are completely misinterpreting these statements (evolution as an observation meaning change over time, and evolution as a theory, which is not, therefore, a fact, and cannot be - try Gould rather than Lewontin), and b) try actual scientific papers on evolutionary science, not essays and after-dinner addresses. Also stuff by living, practising evolutionary scientists! (i.e. not Dawkins :))

CH: Yes, evolution is driven by metaphysics. Evolution is claimed to be a fact, and the arguments/demonstrations for that claim, while very powerful, are religious. There is no demonstration for that claim that is not metaphysical. If there was one, then I would take it all back and join in the celebration.

Me: "is claimed to be" - watch that passive. Who is claiming this, in what context? Do you really consider yourself justified in this extraordinary generalisation, even granted, for the sake of argument, that the people you are thinking of are actually saying that evolutionary theory is a fact? Because I don't know of any example of that claim where a clear distinction has not been made (including by Lewontin) between the observation of change over time (evolution as in "change") and evolutionary theory (as proposed by Darwin and developed vastly since). The former being a fact and the latter being a theory.

CH: No, I’m afraid it is not that simple. You seem to be unaware of evolutionary thought.

Consider the possibility that you yourself are extrapolating from your knowledge of the history of evolutionary thought to the position held by actual practising evolutionary scientists.

CH: Oh, no, not at all. If that were true then evolution would have been dropped long ago.

I'm not really sure how to respond to this. There are mountains of empirical research supporting hypotheses derived from evolutionary theory. Can you really be unaware of it? Do you only ever read essays, not scientific papers?

EL: Nonetheless, however appealing a scientific theory may be to someone with a religious (or even anti-religious) point of view, the test of a scientific theory is not whether we like it, but whether it fits the data.

CH: But that’s not how evolution works.

EL: It's certainly how evolutionary science works! (I'm being cautious here because the naked word "evolution" can be very ambiguous).

No, it is not how evolution works. Evolution is not judged on how well it fits the data. If that were the case it would be judged to be a poor theory. Instead it is judged to be a fact because evolution is judged in comparison to creationism. Philosophers call this “contrastive thinking.” In fact, even very poor fits to the data are just fine, as Elliott Sober explains:

“This last result provides a reminder of how important the contrastive framework is for evaluating evidence. It seems to offend against common sense to say that E is stronger evidence for the common-ancestry hypothesis the lower the value is of [the probability of E given the common-ancestry hypothesis]. This seems tantamount to saying that the evidence better supports a hypothesis the more miraculous the evidence would be if the hypothesis were true. Have we entered a Lewis Carroll world in which down is up? No, the point is that, in the models we have examined, the ratio [the probability of E given the common-ancestry hypothesis divided by the probability of E given the separate-ancestry hypothesis] goes up as [the probability of E given the common-ancestry hypothesis] goes down. … When the likelihoods of the two hypotheses are linked in this way, it is a point in favor of the common-ancestry hypothesis that it says that the evidence is very improbable.” [Evidence and Evolution, p. 314]

CH: When I say religion drives science, that is simply an objective observation of evolutionary thought. I’m talking about an “is,” not an “ought.”

Well, I think you are making an unsupportable generalisation from a small unrepresentative, and, indeed, misunderstood, sample! Certainly when you put it in the present tense. You may well be right, historically, but ultimately the test of a scientific theory is whether it delivers successful hypotheses, and evolutionary theory emphatically does.

No, evolution’s predictions routinely turn out to be false. And certainly the science indicates that the spontaneous origin of life and the species is astronomically unlikely. That is true even for a single protein.

CH: Well we never even did the single check, to say nothing of the double check. Evolution is a “fact” due to religious concerns. The claim doesn’t come from science.

Me: a) I think you are completely misinterpreting these statements (evolution as an observation meaning change over time, and evolution as a theory, which is not, therefore, a fact, and cannot be - try Gould rather than Lewontin),

No, I’m not misinterpreting these statements. I’m afraid you are. When evolutionists say their idea is a fact, they are not referring to an observation. If that were true it would be uncontroversial. And they would have no need to go into great detail about how just because we don’t observe something directly doesn’t mean it can’t be a fact.

When Lewontin says that “It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms” he is not referring to allele frequency changes. When the NAS says that “The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong” it is not referring to allele frequency changes. When Futuyma says that “the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors--the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth's revolution about the sun” he is not referring to allele frequency changes. When Gould says that “Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been lead to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy” he is not referring to allele frequency changes.

Lizzie these claims are quite obvious and I’m surprised we’re even debating this. When evolutionists state that evolution is a fact, they are not using some clever definition of the word. They are using the word “evolution” in the standard way. That is, that the origin of species by natural means, usually understood to involve descent with modification, as clearly stated in these quotes.

To imagine that these claims are really referring merely to allele frequency changes would be bizarre.

Here is a paper that, believe it or not, uses a couple dozen protein sequences to conclude that common descent to be astronomically probable (of course it uses contrastive reasoning):

http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/05/let-worship-begin.html

Here’s a paper that argues from dysteleology:

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/suppl.2/8969.full.pdf+html

Consider the possibility that you yourself are extrapolating from your knowledge of the history of evolutionary thought to the position held by actual practising evolutionary scientists.

It was the contemporary evolutionary science, with its bizarre claims, that led me to the history. Then everything fell into place.

CH: Oh, no, not at all. If that were true then evolution would have been dropped long ago.

EL: I'm not really sure how to respond to this. There are mountains of empirical research supporting hypotheses derived from evolutionary theory. Can you really be unaware of it? Do you only ever read essays, not scientific papers?

Not sure exactly what you could mean here. There are mountains of empirical research supporting hypotheses derived from the flat earth theory also, but of course there is no serious scientific conclusion that either the Earth is flat or that life and the species arose spontaneously.

CH, I'm busy most of today, but I'd like to ask you one thing, before I respond to the rest of your replies:

Can you give me ONE example of any evolutionist who claims that the idea of evolution "is a fact"?

Not "evolution is a fact" but "the idea of evolution is a fact"?

Because as we both know, to our cost, the word "evolution" is ambiguous, and can mean "change over time" "change in allele frequency over time" "change in populations over time", as well as referrint to a large body of theory aka "ideas".

I would like a single reference for someone who claims that the theory aka idea of evolution is a fact.

CH: No, it is not how evolution works. Evolution is not judged on how well it fits the data. If that were the case it would be judged to be a poor theory. Instead it is judged to be a fact because evolution is judged in comparison to creationism. Philosophers call this “contrastive thinking.” In fact, even very poor fits to the data are just fine, as Elliott Sober explains:

“This last result provides a reminder of how important the contrastive framework is for evaluating evidence. It seems to offend against common sense to say that E is stronger evidence for the common-ancestry hypothesis the lower the value is of [the probability of E given the common-ancestry hypothesis]. This seems tantamount to saying that the evidence better supports a hypothesis the more miraculous the evidence would be if the hypothesis were true. Have we entered a Lewis Carroll world in which down is up? No, the point is that, in the models we have examined, the ratio [the probability of E given the common-ancestry hypothesis divided by the probability of E given the separate-ancestry hypothesis] goes up as [the probability of E given the common-ancestry hypothesis] goes down. … When the likelihoods of the two hypotheses are linked in this way, it is a point in favor of the common-ancestry hypothesis that it says that the evidence is very improbable.” [Evidence and Evolution, p. 314]

Yes, it is how evolutionary science works. All science works by fitting models to data, and evaluating the goodness-of-fit, either relative to a null hypothesis or to an alternative hypothesis. As Sober does indeed explain.

However, you have misunderstood Sober's math. He is not saying that CA is a "poor fit" to the data.

What he is what he is saying (you've actually omitted the most helpful part of his explanation, the part represented by your ellipses) is simply that if two species share a heritable feature that has a high probability of appearing spontaneously, it is only weak evidence for a shared ancestor , but if they share a feature that has an extremely low probability of appearing spontaneously, it is very strong evidence for a shared ancestor.

This is actually pretty obvious! Sometimes fancy math notation can obscure rather than reveal.

More to the point, he is not, therefore, saying that the data fits CA badly (but better than creationism) he is simply saying that the bigger the difference between the the probability of the observed, given hypothesis A, and the observed, given hypothesis B, more the observed will support the hypothesis under which the observed is more likely!

In his toy example, the probability of the observed (same feature in two species), given CA, is 1, and the probability of the observed, given SA is p^2, where p is the probability of spontaneous appearance of the heritable feature in question.

Therefore if p is small, observing the the same feature in both species is huge support for CA. And an excellent fit of model to data!

Ok, I checked out your links (I wish you'd link to your sources directly, instead of to blog pieces in which you cite several), and also the blog pieces on which you posted them.

You seem to have a problem with "contrastive" hypothesis testing.

All hypothesis testing is "contrastive". Either we compare a model against a null, or against a competing model.

We compare model fits. In the case of null hypothesis testing, if the null hypothesis is a poor fit to the data (i.e. if the observed data are unlikely under the null) then we reject the null. This does not mean our hypothesis is correct, it merely means that the null is falsified, and our predictions confirmed. Most scientists then go on to try to find an alternative hypothesis that would also account for the observed, but new and different predictions about new data. This is good, rigorous scientific methodology.

We only reject null hypotheses. We do not formally reject alternative hypotheses, we merely compare them for fit. Sometimes we even retain two ill-fitting models because each fits a certain range of the data better than the other.

We do not reject a study hypothesis merely because it leaves large residuals; we merely retain the null if its residuals are greater than those of the null.

Thus "incompleteness" lies at the heart of scientific hypothesis testing. We always have residuals. We expect to have residuals. We do not expect perfect fit between our model and the data. We are content merely if our model is a better fit to the data than another model, or better than the null.

Thus scientific methodology allows us to make no claims of "completeness". It also does not allow us to claim "reality" - because all we ever have are models and data. And even our data are just models at a level nearer to that elusive "reality.

In other words all models - all theories, all hypotheses - are false. All are, at best, incomplete approximations to reality.

But some are less incomplete than others, and some are simply much better fits to the data than others.

So it is with evolutionary theory. It is a portmanteau theory, containing many parts, and generating many hypotheses. Many of these, as always in science, fail, and the null is retained. Many do better than the null and are refined, and compared with a new null, or against an alternative. In all cases, the better model is the one retained. Thus the body of our explanatory theory is built up, and our picture of how living things emerged from simple beginnings to the diversity and complexity of many modern organisms, is gradually filled out.

But it's still a model. And therefore, it's still wrong. It always will be. Just less wrong than alternative models.

Unfortunately we can't compare its fit to the data with an ID model, unless there is one. It certainly does better than a benevolent ID model. But as there is no limit to the number of possible ID models, ID per se ranked against a non-ID model.

Can you give me ONE example of any evolutionist who claims that the idea of evolution "is a fact"? Not "evolution is a fact" but "the idea of evolution is a fact"? I would like a single reference for someone who claims that the theory aka idea of evolution is a fact.

Yes, sure, but I remain perplexed that the citations I have already supplied don’t do the job. This is a strong consensus position, well documented in the literature. I’ll give you some more references here, but if the claim is not already clear to you, then I’m a bit concerned that just looking at more quotes isn’t going to help.

Now you said you wanted a recent quote. Will 1888 do? But seriously, I think a quick look at Joseph Le Conte is worthwhile to understand the pervasiveness of this thinking, and its religious roots (we could also go back before Darwin, say to Kant and Leibniz). Le Conte wrote:

“Evolution is certainly a legitimate induction from the facts of biology. But we are prepared to go much further. We are confident that evolution is absolutely certain. Not, indeed, evolution as a special theory—Larmarckian, Darwinian, Spencerian—for these are all more or less successful modes of explaining evolution … but evolution as a law of derivation of forms from previous forms; evolution as a law of continuity, as a universal law of becoming. In this sense it is not only certain, it is axiomatic.”

And,

“So also, the origins of new organic forms may be obscure or even inexplicable, but we ought not on that account to doubt that they had a natural cause, and came by a natural process; for so to doubt is also to doubt the validity of reason, and the rational constitution of organic Nature. The law of evolution is naught else than the scientific or, indeed, the rational mode of thinking about the origin of things in every department of Nature. … the law of evolution is as certain as the law of gravitation. Nay, it is far more certain …”

Now for something more recent. Here is what Ernst Mayr wrote in his book *What Evolution Is* from 2001:

“However, throughout the nineteenth century whenever people talked about evolution, they referred to it as a theory. To be sure, at first, the thought that life on Earth could have evolved was merely a speculation. Yet, beginning with Darwin in 1859, more and more facts were discovered that were compatible only with the concept of evolution. Eventually it was widely appreciated that the occurrence of evolution was supported by such an overwhelming amount of evidence that it could no longer be called a theory. Indeed, since it was as well supported by facts as was heliocentricity, evolution also had to be considered a fact, like heliocentricity.” [p. 12]

This quote clearly explains the fact claim. Also, note the contrastive reasoning (i.e., “more and more facts were discovered that were compatible only with the concept of evolution”). Next Mayr further explains:

“Evolution is a historical process that cannot be proven by the same arguments and methods by which purely physical or functional phenomena can be documented. Evolution as a whole, and the explanation of particularly evolutionary events, must be inferred from observations. Such inferences subsequently must be tested again and again against new observations, and the original inference is either falsified or considered strengthened when confirmed by all of those tests. However, most inferences made by evolutionists have by now been tested successfully so often that they are accepted as certainties.” [13]

Next Mayr makes the usual metaphysical exclusivity claim:

“The evidence for evolution is now quite overwhelming. … Indeed, these findings would make no sense in any other explanation.” [13]

Mayr later concludes:

“It is very questionable whether the term “evolutionary theory” should be used any longer. That evolution has occurred and takes place all the time is a fact so overwhelmingly established that is has become irrational to call it a theory.” [264]

And in Appendix B:

“Evolution is not merely an idea, a theory, or a concept, but is the name of a process in nature, the occurrence of which can be documented by mountains of evidence that nobody has been able to refute. Some of this evidence was summarized in Chapters 1-3. It is no actually misleading to refer to evolution as a theory, considering the massive evidence that has been discovered over the last 140 years documenting its existence. Evolution is no longer a theory, it is simply a fact.” [275]

For something even more recent, here is what Jerry Coyne writes in his 2009 book *Why Evolution is True.*

“Now, when we say that “evolution is true,” what we mean is that the major tenets of Darwinism have been verified. Organisms evolved, they did so gradually, lineages split into different species from common ancestors, and natural selection is the major engine of adaptation. No serious biologist doubts these propositions.” [223]

While I do not actually disagree with what I think these authors are saying, I certainly agree that their words are very misleading.

What I think they mean is exactly what Jerry Coyne says in your last quotation:

“Now, when we say that “evolution is true,” what we mean is that the major tenets of Darwinism have been verified. Organisms evolved, they did so gradually, lineages split into different species from common ancestors, and natural selection is the major engine of adaptation. No serious biologist doubts these propositions.”

I agree with what he means by the phrase, but I would not myself express the meaning with the words "evolution is true".

But perhaps I'm just extra persnickety!

However, to make your metaphysical claim stick you would have to demonstrate, I think, that these authors did not merely mean that evolutionary theory was supported beyond any reasonable doubt (with which I would agree) but that they meant that no other theory (even theories unthought of) could ever do better, and that non-natural factors are ruled out.

Do you think they are saying this?

I would also point out that all these quotations are from books not from peer-reviewed empirical papers. In other words they are about science, they are not science.

But I do concede that your point that there are a number of evolutionists who make claims that could be interpreted as metaphysical claims about the reach of science.

I do not concede that this view "drives science" or even evolutionary science, nor do I think it is held by all (at most N-1) evolutionists. I do not even think the metaphysical view is necessarily held by those you quoted.

What I think they mean is exactly what Jerry Coyne says in your last quotation:

“Now, when we say that “evolution is true,” what we mean is that the major tenets of Darwinism have been verified. Organisms evolved, they did so gradually, lineages split into different species from common ancestors, and natural selection is the major engine of adaptation. No serious biologist doubts these propositions.”

I agree with what he means by the phrase, but I would not myself express the meaning with the words "evolution is true". But perhaps I'm just extra persnickety!

Well good. But keep in mind, this isn’t about your view, or my view. We’re talking about evolutionary thought.

However, to make your metaphysical claim stick you would have to demonstrate, I think, that these authors did not merely mean that evolutionary theory was supported beyond any reasonable doubt (with which I would agree) but that they meant that no other theory (even theories unthought of) could ever do better, and that non-natural factors are ruled out.

Oh no, that’s not needed. Yes that would demonstrate a metaphysical position, but evolution’s metaphysics are clear long before that. In fact, you already agreed that this is non scientific: “Any claim that "the theory of evolution is a fact" is a hyperbolic oxymoron, and not something any scientist would make as a scientific claim. It lacks precision for a start.”

Remember, we’re merely on a tangent that occurred when I began to explain why evolution is religious. One of my premises was that evolutionists claim their idea to be a fact, as much as heliocentrism or the sphericity of the Earth, and you questioned that. So that took us on this tangent.

However, you have misunderstood Sober's math. He is not saying that CA is a "poor fit" to the data.

Well no, I’m afraid I haven’t misunderstood Sober's math.

What he is what he is saying (you've actually omitted the most helpful part of his explanation, the part represented by your ellipses) is simply that if two species share a heritable feature that has a high probability of appearing spontaneously, it is only weak evidence for a shared ancestor, but if they share a feature that has an extremely low probability of appearing spontaneously, it is very strong evidence for a shared ancestor.

This is actually pretty obvious! Sometimes fancy math notation can obscure rather than reveal.

More to the point, he is not, therefore, saying that the data fits CA badly (but better than creationism) he is simply saying that the bigger the difference between the probability of the observed, given hypothesis A, and the observed, given hypothesis B, more the observed will support the hypothesis under which the observed is more likely!

In his toy example, the probability of the observed (same feature in two species), given CA, is 1, and the probability of the observed, given SA is p^2, where p is the probability of spontaneous appearance of the heritable feature in question.

Therefore if p is small, observing the same feature in both species is huge support for CA. And an excellent fit of model to data!

No, I think you read too quickly on this one. The point is simply that the likelihood ratio goes to p/p^2, or 1/p. So you get a high likelihood ratio (and therefore a victory for CA) when p is small. IOW, CA looks good when one is looking at deleterious designs. This does *not* mean that the conditional probability of the observation on CA is any good. It isn’t. But as that conditional probability becomes smaller, the denominator (conditional probability of the observation on SA) becomes even smaller. The whole point is that you have a 1/p likelihood ratio, so CA wins when you have low p, that is, when you have deleterious designs. You’ll be able to see this easily if you take another read.

All of this gets back to your claim that:

Nonetheless, however appealing a scientific theory may be to someone with a religious (or even anti-religious) point of view, the test of a scientific theory is not whether we like it, but whether it fits the data.

Sober’s analysis is an example of why this isn’t true. That’s the rub with contrastive reasoning. There’s nothing wrong with contrastive reasoning, per se, but in the end all you’ve done is compared two hypotheses. You can’t start making fact claims because hypothesis X beat out hypothesis Y. But that’s what evolutionists do. They end up with grandiose claims, even though their theory has astronomically low probability. Life and the species don’t appear spontaneously, at least this is not likely under science. But evolution is a fact because, as they say, nothing else makes sense. 1/p is huge.

No, I think you read too quickly on this one. The point is simply that the likelihood ratio goes to p/p^2, or 1/p. So you get a high likelihood ratio (and therefore a victory for CA) when p is small. IOW, CA looks good when one is looking at deleterious designs.

I think you read too imaginatively! Actually, if anything, the opposite is the case.

CA simply "looks good" when we are looking at a low frequency event (low p) that has a high probability of observed twice under CA (and non-deleteriousness), but only a p^2 probability under SA.

Let's take a really really simple example.

We have a paternity case. Husband thinks his wife's second child is not his. His best friend has a mutation that rarely appears spontaneously. So does his second child. Neither he nor his wife have that mutation.

Under the hypothesis that his second child is the son of his best friend, the probability that the child will have the rare mutation is .5. Under the hypothesis that the child is the husband's, the probability that the child will have the allele is simply equal to the frequency of that mutation occurring spontaneously.

Therefore for the case for "2nd child is not mine" is extremely strong.

Now, take a different mutation, one that has a much higher frequency of spontaneous occurrence. Now, the probability of observing the mutation in the 2nd child is much higher under the child-is-husband's hypothesis, although still a lot lower than under the child-is-best-friend's hypothesis.

In this case, it doesn't matter much whether the mutation is deleterious or advantageous, although if the mutation causes impotence, then that would load the probabilities on the no-infidelity side. But as long as the mutation does not affect the probability of the affair, all that matters is that the less frequently it appears spontaneously, the stronger the case for the child-is-best-friend's hypothesis.

Exactly the same is true in Sober's example, except that the probability that an ancestral mutation will be present in a descendent is much higher if the mutation is non-deleterious, and better still if it is advantageous and therefore "highly conserved".

That means that if the same advantageous mutation to appears in both lineages, under CA, the probability that both lineages will have it if a common ancestor had it is high. (Sober sets it to 1 for simplicity).

Under CA, therefore, the probability of observing a highly advantageous mutation in both species, is 1*p of the mutation occurring at all, whereas the probability of observing it under SA is the p^2.

If the probability of the mutation occurring spontaneously is high, these two numbers will be similar, and therefore not strong evidene for CA. If the probability of the mutation occurring spontaneously is low, the difference between them will be great, and will be much stronger evidence for CA, just as my hypothetical father has a much stronger paternity suit against his best friend if the mutation his friend shares with his son is one that rarely occurs spontaneously than if it is one that commonly occurs spontaneously.

EL: Nonetheless, however appealing a scientific theory may be to someone with a religious (or even anti-religious) point of view, the test of a scientific theory is not whether we like it, but whether it fits the data.

CH: Sober’s analysis is an example of why this isn’t true. That’s the rub with contrastive reasoning. There’s nothing wrong with contrastive reasoning, per se, but in the end all you’ve done is compared two hypotheses.

Yes, of course. And much of the time that's what we do. But we also compare absolute fits.

For example, we can fit a linear slope to the relationship between to variables. We can contrast that with the null of "no slope" i.e. no relationship. And if reject the null, we can also quantify the fit - for example by summing the square of the residuals.

Confidence in your hypothesis is only loosely related to the confidence with which you reject the null. That is why I say that we do not actually proceed by falsfication of hypotheses in science, on the whole. We say we falsify the null, but if we falsify the null, that is all we say. We do not say our hypothesis is true, we say that the data are more consistent with our hypothesis than with the null.

What gives us confidence in our hypothesis are two things: small residuals, and consistently better fits than with a series of alternative hypotheses.

For instance, if I reject a null, the first thing I do is try to think up another hypothesis that would also account for my observations, and make differential predictions that would "tease them apart" as scientists like to say.

You can’t start making fact claims because hypothesis X beat out hypothesis Y.

Agreed.

But that’s what evolutionists do.

Not that I can see. Nobody claims that evolution is true because it's better than ID (although that may be the case). They claim that is true because it consistently generates successful hypotheses. But as I hope is now absolutely clear, I wouldn't even say that. I think it's careless language. But what motivates it is certainly not "well, it beats any other explanation".

In contrast, IDists are the ones who claim that their hypothesis is true because it's better (they insist) than the alternative.

Dembski lays this out in tedious detail in both his "Explanatory Filter" and in his explicity adoption of Fisherian testing model (if the data fall into the rejection region we must infer Design), ignoring the fact that he tests no evolutionary model.

So yes, I agree that we can only have confidence in model if it consistently generates hypothese supported by our observations, not merely if we have rejected some alternative as inferior.

You have nicely pinpointed exactly what is wrong with ID!

But I will happily concede that at least some evolutionist writers are rather too liberal with the F word.

They end up with grandiose claims, even though their theory has astronomically low probability.

Loose grammar has misled you. A "theory" doesn't have a "probability" (well, only in the sense of how likely it is that someone will come up with it). What you really mean is that the events postulated by the theory of evolution have "astronomically low probability".

This is an evidence-free assertion. We simply do not know the probability of the postulated events, and it is impossible to calculate them, not least because you have conflated OOL with evolution:

Life and the species don’t appear spontaneously, at least this is not likely under science.

To take OOL first: we do not know "under science" how "likely" life is, because we do not know just how simple self-replication has to be to be capable of evolution. If very simple, then it may happen with high probability given certain conditions, in which case we might be able to estimate the likely frequency of those conditions in the universe. But we can't even start to calculate it until we have a good model of how simple it could have been.

As for the probability of species occurring, we know that this is highly likely, given an evolving population (and that populations observe is an oberved fact). Indeed speciation - at least incipient speciation - is an observed fact (observed in real time, in both lab and field), and the hypothesis that the process explains bifurcations in inferred phylogenies derived from fossils, extant species, and genetics makes predictions that are also supported by observations.

But evolution is a fact because, as they say, nothing else makes sense. 1/p is huge.

No. "Evolution is a fact" because it makes a great deal of sense, and it doesn't have a competitor within miles.

As for your 1/p, assuming that "p" is "the probability that evolution is true" - let's see your derivation of p.

"But I will happily concede that at least some evolutionist writers are rather too liberal with the F word."

Actually this is the consensus position. I don't know of any tradition within evolutionary thought that holds that evolution is *not* a fact. If you can you provide a citation that shows otherwise I'd appreciate it.

Cornelius, I note that you have completely failed to address my point re Sober!

"X is a fact" is not a scientific statement. It is therefore not something about which the "consensus" is even interesting.

You have demonstrated that more people say it, and in less nuanced ways, than I had been aware, but in none of your examples do I detect any sense that it is a metaphysical statement: Evolution definitely occurred this way, and no other.

Evolutionary theory, as I keep saying, is a large body of theory, subject to constant refinement.

"Evolution is a fact" is too general a claim to have any clear meaning at all, and clearly different people mean different things by it.

Most people seem to mean, simply "the evolutionary framework in which we work is extraordinarily fruitful and it looks as though we've got the key elements essentially right".

And I'd agree with them.

tbh I don't even see why you think that is a problem. All scientific conclusions are provisional, but some are clearly less wrong than others.

Now, what about Sober? Do you now understand that he's not saying that the less evidence there is for a claim, the stronger it is?

"You have demonstrated that more people say it, and in less nuanced ways, than I had been aware, but in none of your examples do I detect any sense that it is a metaphysical statement: Evolution definitely occurred this way, and no other."

Oh, I don't say that is the reason it is metaphysical. Sorry, you got the wrong impression. If one states "I'm pretty sure a benevolent creator would not have made this universe" that is a metaphysical claim, notwithstanding the uncertainty. One need not be making a Prob=1 claim to be making a metaphysical claim.

Your paternity case example does not serve you well because it is not analogous. In the paternity case you have the merging of two genomes, like a “Y”. Both hypotheses (the man, or the man’s friend) are a “Y”.

Exactly the same is true in Sober's example …

No, in the common ancestry (CA) case Sober examines, you have the splitting of a population into two species, like an upside down “Y”. Then for the other hypothesis, you have separate ancestry (SA), which is simply two separate vertical lines “| |”.

I think this will become more obvious if I just explain what Sober is pointing out. On page 300 he shows the FIS-DIS (frequency independent, disadvantageous) likelihood ratio formula. It’s very simple: the probability that species X and Y share trait T given common ancestry and frequency independent selection against T is divided by the probability that species X and Y share trait T given separate ancestry and, again, frequency independent selection against T.

When trait T is in state 0, it is advantageous. When it is in state 1, it is disadvantageous.

On page 301 Sober develops this in his Equation (G). Again, it is straightforward. For the CA case, you consider two possibilities: the ancestral population has T=0 or it has T=1. You let p be the probability T=1:

p = Prob(T=1)

So now you consider the situation where both observed, extant, populations have T=1. In the common ancestry (CA) case, your common ancestor might have T=0, or T=1. For the T=0 possibility, you have the probability of both observed, extant, populations have T=1 as:

(1-p)*Prob(0-->1)^2

And for the T=1 possibility, you have the probability of both observed, extant, populations have T=1 as:

(p)*Prob(1-->1)^2

So the numerator of the likelihood ratio, that is the probability that both observed, extant, populations have T=1 given CA, is simply the sum of these two probabilities:

(1-p)*Prob(0-->1)^2 + (p)*Prob(1-->1)^2

Now for the separate ancestry (SA) case. Here, to obtain the probability that both observed, extant, populations have T=1 given SA, you just compute the probability that a single extant population has T=1, and then square it.

So again, for the possibility that the ancestor has T=0, you have the probability of the observed, extant, population has T=1 as:

(1-p)*Prob(0-->1)

And for the T=1 possibility, you have:

(p)*Prob(1-->1)

The denominator of the likelihood ratio, that is the probability that both observed, extant, populations have T=1 given SA, is then the sum of these two probabilities squared:

[ (1-p)*Prob(0-->1) + (p)*Prob(1-->1) ]^2

Now given that T=1 is disadvantageous, Sober simplifies this a bit in his (FIS-DIS) equation on page 303, by letting Prob(0-->1) = 0. That is, any transition to a disadvantageous state is small, so just let it be zero.

So you can do the math, to see that the likelihood ratio (ie, the ratio of the two conditional probabilities above), with Prob(0-->1) = 0, is simply:

1/p.

So you can see that according to the likelihood ratio, the argument for CA strengthens as p becomes smaller. And as p becomes smaller, the conditional probability for CA also becomes smaller.

In other words, the worse the probability for CA, the better the case for CA, because the SA probability got even worse yet.

By the way, if you’re looking for analogies, a better one, which Sober uses in his paper “Did Darwin write the Origin backwards?” is plagiarism, where homework assignments from two students are compared. This again, makes the point clear. The lower the probability of the shared the similarity, the stronger the case for plagiarism.

I was considering your original quotation, in which Sober sets p(1-->1) = 1, which will not be the case if T=1 is disadvantageous.

But the more complex case, in which p(1-->1) is small, as in the case of a disadvantageous mutation, still holds,though less strongly.

Sober's point remains valid whether or not the novel sequence in question is deleterious or not, namely, that if you see the same rare thing twice, the probability that they have a common cause becomes greater than the probability that they do not.

As you point out in your plagiarism example.

However, if T=1 is deleterious, observing T will actually contribute less to the case for CA than it would if T=1 was neutral or advantageous, as I will show below. But that doesn’t matter, because the argument is that the lower p is, whether or not T=1 is deleterious, the better the case for CA.

CH:So you can see that according to the likelihood ratio, the argument for CA strengthens as p becomes smaller. And as p becomes smaller, the conditional probability for CA also becomes smaller.

No, it doesn’t. It becomes considerably larger. Or at least, if by "the conditional probability for CA" you mean the posterior probability of CA, given the data (and “data” literally means “what are given”). IN other words, if you mean the conditional probability of the data on CA, then sure. But then your statement below does not follow.

CH:In other words, the worse the probability for CA, the better the case for CA, because the SA probability got even worse yet.

You have, I think, confused the probability of the data, given CA, with the probability of CA, given the data!

Let the probability of the observed sequence (let’s call it M) occurring spontaneously in any individual, be P.

And let's approximate p(0-> 1) to P^N, where N is the number of generations between the putative ancestral population and the present population. Now let Q be the probability that a parent will pass on a the mutation. If Q is near 1, the mutation will be near neutral. If Q is near 0, the mutation will be highly deleterious. So we can alter either of those parameters and see what happens.

We have two hypothesis, CA and SA. These are mutually exclusive, so p(CA)=1-p(SA).

Let’s set our prior for CA at .5, so each hypothesis has equal prior probability. What we want to know is the posterior probability of CA, having observed the same sequence M in both populations. I’ll call that MB (M in Both).

According to Bayes’ theorem:p(CA|MB)=p(MB|CA*p(CA)/(p(MB|CA)*p(CA)+p(MB|SA)*p(SA).

As you say, p(MB|CA)= (1-P)*Prob(0-->1)^2 + (P)*Prob(1-->1)^2

and p(MB|SA)= [ (1-P)*Prob(0-->1) + (P)*Prob(1-->1) ]^2

So now we can plug in some numbers. If P=.0000001, and Q=.9, and N=100,

P(0-->1) = 0.0000100p(1-->1) = 0.3660387

This gives us:

p(B|CA) =0.0000000135 p(B|SA) =0.0000000001

And our posterior probability for CA, given MB is .993 (by my calcs, using Excel).

If we reduce P to .00000001,

P(CA|MB)increases to .999, and so on.

However, if I instead reduce Q to .9 (making T=1 more deleterious), P(CA|MB) drops to only just over .5, and the smaller Q becomes, the nearer to .5 p(CA|MB) remains.

However, the main point holds: the less likely M is to occur spontaneously, the greater the posterior probability of CA. This is why your plagiarism example is correct (and why my paternity example is also correct!)

But your interpretation is quite wrong. The probability of your hypothesis being correct, given the data, is not reduced because the probability of your data, given your hypothesis, is low. It is increased, as you will see if you plug my math into Excel. There is nothing “post-modern” about this. Even if you put in a very low prior for CA, your posterior will still be greater than your prior.

The reason the contrastive hypothesis works is simply because p(CA)=1-p(SA). That means that your inference is only as good as that assumption.

Which may not be good. Dembski uses exactly the same reasoning to infer ID, but unfortunately violates that assumption. He assumes that p(chance)=1-p(design). But he computes p(chance) in a way that is too narrow, and thus has a large excluded middle.

Now, if you want to argue that common-ancestry and separate ancestry are not mutually exclusive, that’s fine! But that’s not the argument against “contrastive” reasoning you’ve made by invoking Sober.

There is one, and I’ve made it against Dembski. So, the floor is yours :)

if by "the conditional probability for CA" you mean the posterior probability of CA, given the data (and “data” literally means “what are given”).

No, sorry, I didn't type that out clearly. By "conditional probability for CA" I was referring to the conditional probabilities used in the likelihood ratio. In this case, that would be the numerator, the probability of the observation that both populations have T=1, given CA.

But that is still not the probability of CA, given the data! And so this:

In other words, the worse the probability for CA, the better the case for CA, because the SA probability got even worse yet.

doesn't make sense. The numerator of the conditional probabilities used in in the likelihood ratio isn't "the probability for CA"; it is the probability of the data, given CA.

Now you can compute the ratio between this and the probability of the data, given SA if you want, but it does not tell you anything about the probability of CA being true.

What you want is the posterior probability of CA being true. Which you can do using Bayes theorem and the answer is that the smaller p is the larger the posterior probability for CA. In my example, it rises from a prior of.5 to something near 1.

doesn't make sense. The numerator of the conditional probabilities used in in the likelihood ratio isn't "the probability for CA"; it is the probability of the data, given CA.

It isn’t the probability *of* CA, but it is the probability for the CA case. My abbreviation was too abbreviated.

CH:In other words, the worse the probability for CA, the better the case for CA, because the SA probability got even worse yet.

You have, I think, confused the probability of the data, given CA, with the probability of CA, given the data!

Right, this is the abbreviation I pointed out earlier. I was referring to the evolutionary argument from the likelihood ratio, where the numerator and denominator refers to the probability of the evidence given CA and SA, respectively.

I thought that was clear, but my summary was not. To be clear, “In other words, the worse the conditional probability of the evidence given CA, the better the case for CA, because the conditional probability of the evidence given SA got even worse yet.”

I agree with your Bayesian example, but in any case, in both approaches, the probability of the evidence given CA becomes worse.

The reason the contrastive hypothesis works is simply because p(CA)=1-p(SA). That means that your inference is only as good as that assumption.

But that’s the point. In fact, that is a curious way of putting it because that is the reason why your Bayesian example works.

Even though the conditional probability of the evidence given CA get worse, the likelihood approach makes CA look good by virtue of the contrastive reasoning. The same is true in your Bayesian example, except now you can actually have two numbers (the probabilities of CA and SA given the evidence) instead of one (the ratio of the conditional probabilities of the evidence given CA and SA).

But you’re not getting around the problem. Nothing has changed. Whether in the likelihood approach or in your Bayesian example, the worse the probability of the evidence the better CA looks (either in the form of a ratio or in the form of a probability). In both cases this is underwritten by the contrastive reasoning, which you have kindly supplied in the form of a formula: p(CA)=1-p(SA).

CH: It isn’t the probability *of* CA, but it is the probability for the CA case. My abbreviation was too abbreviated.

What is the difference between these two? The second just seems like a clumsier way of expressing the first.

What the probability you are describing as "the probability for the CA case" actually is (according to the math), is the probability of the data, given CA.

If that is what you are calling "the probability for the CA case" then, that is still extremely confusing - not to say misleading (though I do not accuse you of being deliberately misleading).

It is certainly not the probability that CA is true, which is what it sounds like. And neither is it the probability that CA is true, given the data, which is what we actually want to know.

To take your own example: we want to know "the probability that this essay is plagiarized, given the data", not "the probability of these data, given plagiarism".

We know that if "these data" are the words "Participants were a volunteer sample of psychology students who received course credits for their participation" then, because the probability of these words appearing in a report are very high, whether or not the report has been plagiarised, then the probability of these data, given plagiarism are also very high, but the case for plagiarism low.

However if the words are a verbatim transcript of an unusual claim made in an obscure published paper, then the probability that they will appear at all is very low, as is the probability that they will appear, given plagiarism.

But this of course makes the case for plagiarism stronger, not weaker, because it increases the probability of plagiarism, given the data.

To summarise:

What you are calling "the probability for the CA case" is in fact (check out the math) "the probability of the data, given CA".

This is not an estimate of the probability that CA is true (which seems to me what the words "the probability for the CA case" would most naturally mean). What is an estimate of the probability that CA is true is the posterior probability of CA, given the data.

CH: I agree with your Bayesian example, but in any case, in both approaches, the probability of the evidence given CA becomes worse.

Well "worse" is an unnecessary pejorative. Yes, the probability of the data, given either hypothesis is clearly lower as p decreases. But you aren't interested in the probability of the evidence, any more than you are interested in the probability of the hand of cards you are dealt after you've dealt it. Once it's dealt, it's there - you can ignore all the alternative universes in which you were dealt a different hand.

And given the data (a tautology, as "data" actually means: "what are given"), what we are interested in what that means for our alternative hypotheses. And what it means is that the probability of one being true hugely increases, and the other decreases. And as p(CA)=1-p(SA) as the first approaches 1 the second necessarily approaches 0. You do not end up with two small probabilities in which one is nonetheless a lot bigger than the other. They sum to 1.

CH:But that’s the point. In fact, that is a curious way of putting it because that is the reason why your Bayesian example works.

Yes, but it was your example, not mine! You seemed to think that what was wrong with it was that the "probability of the CA case" was still tiny after doing the Bayesian computation. It isn't.

What is wrong isn't that the probability of the data, given CA is still very small (if p is small) and therefore the probability of the CA case still very small (it isn't) but that we have no excluded middle.

CH:Even though the conditional probability of the evidence given CA get worse, the likelihood approach makes CA look good by virtue of the contrastive reasoning.

No. You are still not understanding the Bayesian probability calculation. The absolute magnitude of the probability of the evidence given CA is irrelevant once you have the evidence. It doesn't "get worse". There is no "worse" about it. All that matters is the relative probability of the data, given each hypothesis, and neither of these probabilities are the probability of the "case for" the respective hypothesis.

Yes, "CA" looks good "by virtue of contrastive reasoning" but not because although p(CA|data) is small, p(SA|data) is "worse". Neither of those are probabilities "for" either case.

In other words you are reaching a correct conclusion (that contrastive reasoning is the "reason CA looks good") but that is not because the case for CA is still very tiny.

CH:The same is true in your Bayesian example, except now you can actually have two numbers (the probabilities of CA and SA given the evidence) instead of one (the ratio of the conditional probabilities of the evidence given CA and SA).

Both examples are Bayesian. I have done exactly what Sober has done, only I have gone further and actually computed the posterior probability for CA, rather than simply computed the odds ratio for the p(data|CA) and p(data|SA). I did this to show you that neither of these two quantities are the probability "for the CA/SA" case. Clearly, the odds ratio will tell you which way the answer is going to go, so it is still worth looking at (and saves you putting a prior on either hypothesis, which is, in fact important, but that's a different issue), as long as you don't then interpret the numerator or denominator incorrectly, which I think you have done.

CH: But you’re not getting around the problem. Nothing has changed. Whether in the likelihood approach or in your Bayesian example, the worse the probability of the evidence the better CA looks (either in the form of a ratio or in the form of a probability). In both cases this is underwritten by the contrastive reasoning, which you have kindly supplied in the form of a formula: p(CA)=1-p(SA).

What I have done is to show you that you have reached a reasonable conclusion by an erroneous piece of reasoning! The only issue is whether we assume p(CA)=1-p(SA) or not.

It doesn't matter whether we use a Bayesian approach, as Sober does, or a Fisherian approach, as Dembski does. All that matters is that we set up the pair of contrasting hypotheses in such a way that one is everything except the other.

For example, to take Sober's example, the reason it reaches a conclusion you don't like, is that it has assumed that under Separate Ancestry, the only possible explanation for M appearing in both populations is that it appeared spontaneously in both (with probability = p).

This is not necessarily a safe assumption. So we could do exactly the same math, but this time, we will relabel our hypotheses. Now "SA" becomes "IM" for "Independent Mutations" and "CA" becomes "NM" for "non-independent mutations". p(NM)=1-p(IM).

You do exactly the same math, and you end up with an increased posterior probabilty of NM. However, now, instead of concluding that "CA" is overwhelmingly supported, we just as validly conclude that "NM" is overwhelmingly supported.

The only difference is our interpretation - we now conclude that something or other in the ancestry of both was common, but that common factor wasn't necessarily a common ancestor, but, possibly, a common designer.

And this precisely where Dembski goes wrong. He uses "contrastive reasoning" which is just fine as long as you interpret your conclusions appropriately.

And just as concluding that "CA" is highly probable is only as good as your case that "CA" is the only possible explanation for non-independence (which we know it is not - HGT is another possibility, for a start), so Dembski's conclusion that "ID" is highly probable is only as good as his case that "ID" is the only possible explanation for patterns that he regards as "specified".

In other words you have to be really careful about your remainders - what have you ruled out?

In Fisherian approaches this means carefully specifying your null (this is where Dembski makes his error). In Bayesian approaches, it means being very careful to specify exactly what each of your alternative hypotheses predicts.

PS: actually, I realise Sober is even closer to doing what I did than I thought. He's basically assumed that the priors for each hypothesis are equal so they cancel out. So all you need to do to convert his odds ratio into my posterior probability is to add the numerator to the denominator.

What is the difference between these two? The second just seems like a clumsier way of expressing the first.

Not sure how to respond since I’ve already explained it, such as in the following:

Right, this is the abbreviation I pointed out earlier. I was referring to the evolutionary argument from the likelihood ratio, where the numerator and denominator refers to the probability of the evidence given CA and SA, respectively.

I thought that was clear, but my summary was not. To be clear, “In other words, the worse the conditional probability of the evidence given CA, the better the case for CA, because the conditional probability of the evidence given SA got even worse yet.”

I thought that was clear.

What you are calling "the probability for the CA case" is in fact (check out the math) "the probability of the data, given CA". This is not an estimate of the probability that CA is true

Right agreed. I thought I was clear about that above. It appears you are not reading what I wrote, but just repeating the same criticism for effect.

But you aren't interested in the probability of the evidence, any more than you are interested in the probability of the hand of cards you are dealt after you've dealt it. Once it's dealt, it's there - you can ignore all the alternative universes in which you were dealt a different hand.

Well that’s a telling statement. No one is talking about alternative universes. The problem here is that the evidence has low probability on CA. You can’t just dismiss the low probability of the data on CA, and say it doesn’t matter. Of course it matters. And it’s the one thing that doesn’t hinge on metaphysics.

You can’t dismiss the low probability simply because “we’re not interested in that.” Nor can you dismiss it because you think your calculated posterior probability takes precedence, and is more important. That posterior is metaphysical whereas the probability of the data at least derives from a hypothesis.

what we are interested in what that means for our alternative hypotheses. And what it means is that the probability of one being true hugely increases, and the other decreases. And as p(CA)=1-p(SA) as the first approaches 1 the second necessarily approaches 0. You do not end up with two small probabilities in which one is nonetheless a lot bigger than the other. They sum to 1.

You seemed to think that what was wrong with it was that the "probability of the CA case" was still tiny after doing the Bayesian computation. It isn't.

You seem to be working hard to avoid what I said, even after I clarified it.

In other words you are reaching a correct conclusion (that contrastive reasoning is the "reason CA looks good") but that is not because the case for CA is still very tiny.

Again, you seem to be working hard to avoid what I said. The bottom line is this:

1. We’re looking at making the case for CA. We’re looking at the likelihood ratio and at the posterior probability but, either way, we find the case for CA can be made to look extremely powerful. This is achieved by,

2. The use of contrastive reasoning which in this case is metaphysical.

3. Finding those designs that are disadvantageous and so have low probability on CA. The lower the probability on CA, the better, because, the SA model that is used gives an even lower probability of data. That is, as you move to designs with lower probabilities on CA, the probabilities on SA decrease even faster.

It’s all metaphysical. The non metaphysical result is that the evidence has low probability on CA.

Both examples are Bayesian.

Likelihoodism is usually contrasted with Bayesianism.

as long as you don't then interpret the numerator or denominator incorrectly, which I think you have done.

Well you’ve said this repeatedly without actually addressing what I said, and in particular my clarifications. You seem to be repeating this over and over, even though I have clarified more than once now.

The only issue is whether we assume p(CA)=1-p(SA) or not. … All that matters is that we set up the pair of contrasting hypotheses in such a way that one is everything except the other.

Only issue? That’s metaphysical.

For example, to take Sober's example, the reason it reaches a conclusion you don't like

It is not the conclusion that I don’t like. It is the misrepresentation. The selective use of data and non scientific premises is not within science, it is metaphysics. Nothing wrong with metaphysics, just don’t call it science.

CH: You seem to be working hard to avoid what I said, even after I clarified it.

No I am not, Cornelius, and if I was a less tolerant woman, I'd be offended at the suggestion. I am working extremely hard to understand what you have said, but fortunately, because you give the a reference to the actual math term, I can track it back, and what you keep referring to as "the probability for the CA case" is, in fact, the probability of the data given the CA case. These two things are simply not the same!

Your "clarification" is just as way off the mark as your original was.

CH: The use of contrastive reasoning which in this case is metaphysical.

It's not that the case can be made to look powerful by contrastive reasoning, Cornelius. All hypotheses are tested by contrastive reasoning. And by this stage I simply have no clue what you mean by "metaphysical" in this context. There is nothing "metaphysical" about hypothesis testing, whether Bayesian or Fisherian. You just need to be very careful how you are constructing your null. Dembski isn't. The rest of us usually are.

CH: Finding those designs that are disadvantageous and so have low probability on CA. The lower the probability on CA, the better, because, the SA model that is used gives an even lower probability of data. That is, as you move to designs with lower probabilities on CA, the probabilities on SA decrease even faster.

Cornelius, I went to great lengths to show you that the more deleterious the mutation, the lower the probability of CA|data. Did you not follow my math? Did you find an error? And you keep using impossible-to-parse terms like "the probability on CA". I don't know what that means, and when I track it back, it usually turns out to be p(data|CA).

CH:It’s all metaphysical. The non metaphysical result is that the evidence has low probability on CA.

I have no idea what you mean by either of theses sentences.

CH:Likelihoodism is usually contrasted with Bayesianism.

Yes, but what you are calling the likelihood and I am calling the odds ratio is only one simple arithmetical step away from the posterior probability, if we set the priors for both hypothesis at .5. The issue is what it actually means.

A likelihood ratio is not a probability measure, and the numerator and denominator are not probabilities for either hypothesis.

CH:Well you’ve said this repeatedly without actually addressing what I said, and in particular my clarifications. You seem to be repeating this over and over, even though I have clarified more than once now.

That's because your clarifications are not clear!

I take it that you agree that the numerator of your likelihood ratio is p(data|CA) and your denominator is p(data|SA)?

So how do you get "probability on CA" from p(data|CA)? What do those words even mean, in plain English?

CH:It is not the conclusion that I don’t like. It is the misrepresentation. The selective use of data and non scientific premises is not within science, it is metaphysics. Nothing wrong with metaphysics, just don’t call it science.

Of course "selective use of data" is not science. I have never come across any usage of "metaphysics" that would make it that either. It's just bad science.

It is not what is being done here. Or, at least, you have not made the case that it is.

I can track it back, and what you keep referring to as "the probability for the CA case" is, in fact, the probability of the data given the CA case. These two things are simply not the same! Your "clarification" is just as way off the mark as your original was.

Well we’ve traded many comments here so it may get confusing, but that was not my clarification. That was what I said many comments back, you pointed out it was clumsy, I agree and made this clarification:

I thought that was clear, but my summary was not. To be clear, “In other words, the worse the conditional probability of the evidence given CA, the better the case for CA, because the conditional probability of the evidence given SA got even worse yet.”

So how do you get "probability on CA" from p(data|CA)? What do those words even mean, in plain English?

Again, you seem to be consistently going several comments back and sticking to a comment I made which I clarified several times.

OK. So we agree that all the numerator is is the probability of the data, given the the hypothesis?

That's fine. In that case there is no even apparent oxymoron. The numerator tells you absolutely nothing about the strength of the evidence for CA, and nor, in fact, does the likelihood ratio per se. It only does so IF p(CA)=1-p(SA) is a valid proposition.

Which in fact, it is not. Not because it is a contrast, but because there is a substantial excluded middle.

Hunter: So how did this evolution professor defend his claim that evolutionary science does not claim completeness? Believe it or not, his source was that fount of knowledge, the famous Judge John Jones, as though the judge was now an authority on the subject.

I am not an "evolution professor." I am a professor of physics. Get that straight, Cornelius.

Also, Judge Jones was not "my source." He is an example of a layman who had no trouble understanding that scientific knowledge has its limits. If it seems like a novel idea to you (and judging by a flurry of activity here, it is), maybe you need to be taken to school, too.

" Tell us about your education for this case.Although you hadn't heard of ID,you likely had heard of creationism or creation science.Has this been a field that you followed at all?

JJ: "No,not other than popular culture.When I went to law school in the late 70's,I followed the progression of cases we talked about before( Scopes trial,Epperson vs Ark,Edwards v Aguillard) .I understood the general theme.I'd seen Inherit the Wind"

CH: " This is the same judge,who,regarding evolution criticism,explained that" I understood the general theme. I'd seen Inherit the Wind"

In my opinion," understood the general theme" for a lawyer is the precedent cases,not the Hollywood's version of the law. In your version,which fits neatly into your narrative, his knowledge flowed from a biased movie.Either way,he wasn't talking about ID,which has nothing to do with creation science,and from his answer the movie wasn't sole source of general knowledge.Sorry for the digression, like EL said,I hate cherry picked data

You incorrectly identified what he was asked. You changed the meaning of his response by editing out his reference to the legal aspects of creationism,which had been to focus up to that point in the interview, leaving the reader the incorrect impression that " understanding the theme" could only refer to watching a movie as his only source of understanding of creationism,which you redefined as criticism of evolution.

You incorrectly identified what he was asked. You changed the meaning of his response by editing out his reference to the legal aspects of creationism,which had been to focus up to that point in the interview, leaving the reader the incorrect impression that " understanding the theme" could only refer to watching a movie as his only source of understanding of creationism,which you redefined as criticism of evolution.

That's all? OK, I'll modify, but just for you. I didn't include it because it is irrelevant. The point is Jones was duped by a silly, two-dimensional evolutionary propaganda film. Whether it's in reference to creationism, criticism, whatever, is irrelevant.

I thought your point was clear all along. Unjustified,but clear. I know it is a better narrative to be the victim of a biased judge. And I don't doubt that you sincerely believe you were.

So your theory is that Judge Jones ignored his training and legal duty to impartially judge a case on the law and only on the testimony occurring during the trial because he had seen Inherit the Wind. It is hard to see any flaw in that logic

Well I wasn't thinking "victim," though I suppose silly decisions hurt all of us. For all I know from a strictly legal perspective the case may have been a stellar example of our "world-class" legal system. But from a history and philosophy of science perspective, and a scientific perspective, it was a disaster. The fact that the judge had been duped by the propaganda file *Inherit the Wind* is just classic. Much has already been written about the canards and lies. What better way to top off the sham and reveal the kangaroo court than this. It truly is a "should I laugh or should I cry" moment.

Indeed it has. I forget CH, what were the names of those two guys who got caught blatantly lying in their deposition, and who were referred for prosecution on perjury charges? They testified for the Intelligent Design side, didn't they?

As I have said,I don't doubt that you are sincere in your view the world.But look where it has taken you, you now contend it is a Fact that viewing a movie duped the judge,based on an ambiguous statement in an interview. Is this standard for all facts or just the ones which agree with your view?

As a legitimate source for background understanding of historical religion vs. science legal conflicts, NOT as a source for any technical scientific knowledge used to decide the case. Judge Jones made it very clear he did that ONLY from the evidence presented to him at the trial.

So the judge is not the only one fooled by the propaganda. To say that *Inherit the Wind* is a legitimate source for background understanding of historical religion vs. science legal conflicts is not even wrong. The script is a two-dimensional, blatantly false rendition of the historical events in Dayton, laughable in its obvious agenda. For a federal judge to cite it as a legitimate source for anything, other than a successful propaganda effort, is astonishing.

And you accuse me of shameful misrepresentation? Well at least you are consistent. That is one of the normal modes of discourse for evolutionists. Try to point something out (that is completely uncontroversial and public knowledge), and you get harshly criticized for all kinds of misdeeds, while they meanwhile misrepresent the science and the history.

Hunter: Right, that is the argument. Straying from naturalism is a “science stopper.” So this isn’t exactly helping your contention that evolutionists adhere to incompleteness. After contending this, you are now pointing out how awkward it would be.

There is nothing sinister in that. Once you deviate from MN, you stop doing science and start doing metaphysics. There is nothing sinister in that. Just don't call it science and nobody will get hurt.

> One evolution professor wrote to me that evolutionary science does not claim completeness. Evolutionists readily agree that phenomena may lie outside the realm of strict naturalism. Is that true? <

This is interesting. So, does this qualify as a tacit acknowledgement that the neo-Darwinian theory of evolutionary (as it presently stands) cannot completely account for evolution in strictly naturalistic terms?

Dr. Liddle is not screaming. But like a lot of us in the scientific community we get frustrated with Creationists' inability to parse even the simplest of sentences without adding their own twisted spin.

But whether what is left over (the "residuals" from our models) are explainable by "natural" means is not knowable.

In my view Cornelius's contention that scientists/evolutionists as a whole regard science as potentially capable of providing a complete account of reality is false.

All it can provide us with are models, and those will always be incomplete, and because they will always be incomplete, there is no scientific method of determining whether the residuals are natural (and undiscovered) or non-natural (and undiscoverable).

Okay. But aren't you expressing a belief that neither the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution nor any other future theory of evolution will be able to completely account for evolution in strictly naturalistic terms?

Yes, but that neither implies that I think the residuals must be non-natural, nor that I think they must be natural.

All I am sure of is that natural explanations will never be complete. Whether the causes of the remainders are unexplained because they are undiscovered (natural but still elusive) or because they are undiscoverable (non-natural) is not possible to determine by scientific methodology. Until of course, we find another discoverable one!

It's like an easter egg hunt. We can never be sure we've found all the eggs, and if we stop finding eggs in a particula area, we can't know that that's because the remaining eggs are invisible, or because there are some visible ones we haven't found yet. All we can be sure of us that there are so many eggs, we will never find them all, visible or invisible.

And there is no way we will ever a) find the invisible eggs or b) know whether they even exist. Not by science anyway.

> Usually "theory" means a potential explanation for a body of data, whereas "hypothesis" means a much more specific conjecture that makes a prediction that can be tested against new data. <

Are you sure? Because Wiki says that a theory is a hypothesis that has been tested and verified.

"A scientific theory is a set of principles that explain and predict phenomena.[1] Scientists create scientific theories with the scientific method, when they are originally proposed as hypotheses and tested for accuracy through observations and experiments.[2]"

CH: But evolutionists do not settle for such limitations. How can they mandate method (specifically methodological naturalism) and yet enjoy completeness and realism?

Again, they do not. However, I'd suggest that what we do in science isn't strictly methodological naturalism. Rather, we discard mere possiblities all the time based on criticism.

To use an example from a previous comment.

One of the unique things about people is that we're universal explainers. That we we can create explanations and use them as a criteria for what possibilities we test.

For example, it's unlikely that anyone has performed research to determine if eating a square meter of grass each day for a week would cure the common cold. Why is this? Is it because it's logically impossible? No. Is it because it's unfalsifiable? No, this would be trivial to test. Is it because it's a non-natural? No. Why then is it unlikely to be the subject of research? Because we lack an explanation as to how and why eating a square meter of grass each day for a week would cure the common cold. As such, we discard it, a priori, even before we bother to test it.

And we do this for a near infinite number of mere possibilities every day, in every field of science.

The key points here are...

- That eating a square meter of grass would cure the common cold is not true or false, it's a mere possibility, which we discard, even though it would be true and trivial to test. Should some explanation appear in the future, we can criticize it for errors.

- We discard possibilities not because they are natural or non-natural - what ever that means. We discarded them because explanation-less theories cannot be criticized, which makes it impossible to make progress. As such, it's unclear how science can be complete, as we discard natural, explanation less possibilities all the time.

Not to mention that we discard un-conceived theories, which have no explanation because, well, their explanations have yet to be conceived. We do this despite the fact that the might be true as well.

So, I'm suggesting that your previous diagram is not a contrast between non-natural and natural causes, but that the blue sphere would be mere possibilities and the orange zone would be explanatory theories.

In other words, allowing explanation-less theories into science wouldn't enable us to make progress, in that our knowledge would become closer to realty. Rather, it would cement conjectured, mere possibilities, which could not be corrected or discarded because they cannot be criticized.

In fact, Popper rejected a strict definition of naturalistic methodology because it it's uncritical.

It's as if you think there is some means of obtaining truth in which criticism is not necessary, which you have yet to explicitly disclose - such as divine revelation.

All the previous comments by neo-Darwinists defending 'methodological naturalism' are interesting seeing that advances in science have falsified neo-Darwinism of its naturalistic basis in 'local realism':

Falsification Of Neo-Darwinism by Quantum Entanglement/Information

Neo-Darwinian evolution purports to explain all the wondrously amazing complexity of life on earth by reference solely to chance and necessity processes acting on energy and matter (i.e. purely material processes). In fact neo-Darwinian evolution makes the grand materialistic claim that the staggering levels of unmatched complex functional information we find in life, and even the ‘essence of life’ itself, simply ‘emerged’ from purely material processes. And even though this basic scientific point, of the ability of purely material processes to generate even trivial levels of complex functional information, has spectacularly failed to be established, we now have a much greater proof, than this stunning failure for validation, that ‘put the lie’ to the grand claims of neo-Darwinian evolution. This proof comes from the fact that it is now shown from quantum mechanics that ‘information’ is its own unique ‘physical’ entity. A physical entity that is shown to be completely independent of any energy-matter space-time constraints, i.e. it does not ‘emerge’ from a material basis. Moreover this ‘transcendent information’ is shown to be dominant of energy-matter in that this ‘information’ is shown to be the entity that is in fact constraining the energy-matter processes of the cell to be so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium.

notes:

Falsification of neo-Darwinism;

First, Here is the falsification of local realism (reductive materialism).Here is a clip of a talk in which Alain Aspect talks about the failure of ‘local realism’, or the failure of reductive materialism, to explain reality:

The falsification for local realism (reductive materialism) was recently greatly strengthened:

Physicists close two loopholes while violating local realism – November 2010Excerpt: The latest test in quantum mechanics provides even stronger support than before for the view that nature violates local realism and is thus in contradiction with a classical worldview.http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-physicists-loopholes-violating-local-realism.html

Quantum Measurements: Common Sense Is Not Enough, Physicists Show – July 2009Excerpt: scientists have now proven comprehensively in an experiment for the first time that the experimentally observed phenomena cannot be described by non-contextual models with hidden variables.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722142824.htm

Quantum physics says goodbye to reality - Apr 20, 2007Excerpt: Markus Aspelmeyer, Anton Zeilinger and colleagues from the University of Vienna, however, have now shown that realism is more of a problem than locality in the quantum world. They devised an experiment that violates a different inequality proposed by physicist Anthony Leggett in 2003 that relies only on realism, and relaxes the reliance on locality. To do this, rather than taking measurements along just one plane of polarization, the Austrian team took measurements in additional, perpendicular planes to check for elliptical polarization.They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell's thought experiment, Leggett's inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we're not observing it. "Our study shows that 'just' giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics," Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. "You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism."http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640

In fact the foundation of quantum mechanics within science is now so solid that researchers were able to bring forth this following proof from quantum entanglement experiments;

An experimental test of all theories with predictive power beyond quantum theory – May 2011Excerpt: Hence, we can immediately refute any already considered or yet-to-be-proposed alternative model with more predictive power than this. (Quantum Theory)http://arxiv.org/pdf/1105.0133.pdf

Now this is completely unheard of in science as far as I know. i.e. That a mathematical description of reality would advance to the point that one can actually perform a experiment showing that your current scientific theory will not be exceeded in predictive power by another future scientific theory is simply unprecedented in science!

Further falsification of ‘local’ realism, without even using quantum entanglement to do it, was achieved here;

'Quantum Magic' Without Any 'Spooky Action at a Distance' - June 2011Excerpt: A team of researchers led by Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences used a system which does not allow for entanglement, and still found results which cannot be interpreted classically.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110624111942.htm

Falsification of Local Realism without using Quantum Entanglement - Anton Zeilinger - videohttp://vimeo.com/34168474

of note: hidden variables were postulated to remove the need for ‘spooky’ forces, as Einstein termed them — forces that act instantaneously at great distances, thereby breaking the most cherished rule of relativity theory, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. This following video illustrates just how 'spooky', to use Einstein’s infamous word, this quantum action truly is:

And yet, this ‘spooky’ quantum entanglement, which rigorously falsified local realism (reductive materialism) as the ‘true’ description of reality, is now found in molecular biology on a massive scale!

Quantum entanglement holds together life’s blueprint – 2010Excerpt: When the researchers analysed the DNA without its helical structure, they found that the electron clouds were not entangled. But when they incorporated DNA’s helical structure into the model, they saw that the electron clouds of each base pair became entangled with those of its neighbours (arxiv.org/abs/1006.4053v1). “If you didn’t have entanglement, then DNA would have a simple flat structure, and you would never get the twist that seems to be important to the functioning of DNA,” says team member Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford.http://neshealthblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/quantum-entanglement-holds-together-lifes-blueprint/

The relevance of continuous variable entanglement in DNA – July 2010Excerpt: We consider a chain of harmonic oscillators with dipole-dipole interaction between nearest neighbours resulting in a van der Waals type bonding. The binding energies between entangled and classically correlated states are compared. We apply our model to DNA. By comparing our model with numerical simulations we conclude that entanglement may play a crucial role in explaining the stability of the DNA double helix.http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.4053v1

Quantum Entanglement/Information is confirmed in DNA by direct observation here;

DNA Can Discern Between Two Quantum States, Research Shows – June 2011Excerpt: — DNA — can discern between quantum states known as spin. – The researchers fabricated self-assembling, single layers of DNA attached to a gold substrate. They then exposed the DNA to mixed groups of electrons with both directions of spin. Indeed, the team’s results surpassed expectations: The biological molecules reacted strongly with the electrons carrying one of those spins, and hardly at all with the others. The longer the molecule, the more efficient it was at choosing electrons with the desired spin, while single strands and damaged bits of DNA did not exhibit this property.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110331104014.htm

Coherent Intrachain energy migration at room temperature - Elisabetta Collini & Gregory Scholes - University of Toronto - Science, 323, (2009), pp. 369-73Excerpt: The authors conducted an experiment to observe quantum coherence dynamics in relation to energy transfer. The experiment, conducted at room temperature, examined chain conformations, such as those found in the proteins of living cells. Neighbouring molecules along the backbone of a protein chain were seen to have coherent energy transfer. Where this happens quantum decoherence (the underlying tendency to loss of coherence due to interaction with the environment) is able to be resisted, and the evolution of the system remains entangled as a single quantum state.http://www.scimednet.org/quantum-coherence-living-cells-and-protein/

The necessity of 'transcendent' information, to ‘constrain’ a cell, against thermodynamic effects is noted here:

Information and entropy – top-down or bottom-up development in living systems? A.C. McINTOSHExcerpt: This paper highlights the distinctive and non-material nature of information and its relationship with matter, energy and natural forces. It is proposed in conclusion that it is the non-material information (transcendent to the matter and energy) that is actually itself constraining the local thermodynamics to be in ordered disequilibrium and with specified raised free energy levels necessary for the molecular and cellular machinery to operate.http://journals.witpress.com/paperinfo.asp?pid=420

i.e. It is very interesting to note, to put it mildly, that quantum entanglement, which conclusively demonstrates that ‘information’ in its pure ‘quantum form’ is completely transcendent of any time and space constraints, should be found in molecular biology on such a massive scale, for how can the quantum entanglement ‘effect’ in biology possibly be explained by a material (matter/energy space/time) ’cause’ when the quantum entanglement ‘effect’ falsified material particles as its own ‘causation’ in the first place? (A. Aspect) Appealing to the probability of various configurations of material particles, as neo-Darwinism does, simply will not help since a timeless/spaceless cause must be supplied which is beyond the capacity of the energy/matter particles themselves to supply! To give a coherent explanation for an effect that is shown to be completely independent of any time and space constraints one is forced to appeal to a cause that is itself not limited to time and space! i.e. Put more simply, you cannot explain a effect by a cause that has been falsified by the very same effect you are seeking to explain! Improbability arguments of various ‘specified’ configurations of material particles, which have been a staple of the arguments against neo-Darwinism, simply do not apply since the cause is not within the material particles in the first place!,,,To refute this falsification of neo-Darwinism, one must overturn Alain Aspect, and company’s, falsification of local realism (reductive materialism) !

And to dovetail into Dembski and Marks’s previous work on Conservation of Information;,,,

,,,Encoded ‘classical’ information such as what Dembski and Marks demonstrated the conservation of, and such as what we find encoded in computer programs, and yes, as we find encoded in DNA, is found to be a subset of ‘transcendent’ (beyond space and time) quantum entanglement/information by the following method:,,,

,,,This following research provides solid falsification for the late Rolf Landauer’s decades old contention that the information encoded in a computer is merely physical (merely ‘emergent’ from a material basis) since he believed it always required energy to erase it;

Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 2011Excerpt: No heat, even a cooling effect;In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.”http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm

,,,And to dot the i’s, and cross the t’s, here is the empirical confirmation that quantum information is in fact ‘conserved’;,,,

Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first timeExcerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment.http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html

Born: All the previous comments by neo-Darwinists defending 'methodological naturalism' are interesting seeing that advances in science have falsified neo-Darwinism of its naturalistic basis in 'local realism':

As I've previously pointed, this is specifically referring to one form of local realism. Yet you keep presenting this as if there could be only one one kind of local realism that could be falsified.

So, one could just as well say, All of your previous comments attacking neo-Darwinism are interesting seeing that advances in physics suggest there is more than one form of 'local realism, to be falsified.

Why do you keep making this same parochial argument over and over again, despite being corrected, over and over again?

Would you do us all a favor and get lost? We have seen your comments and long quotations in any number of other fora. You don't even comprehend what the physicists whom you quote say. (I am saying that as a physicist.)

A little harsh,Oleg. There are some who find BA interesting, even if wrong. It is not like it is hard to avoid his posts, and there are enough ones and zeros in the world,barely, to accommodate his output. Those of us much less advanced in physics than you,while we are sure BA is completely confused in the most terrible direction, would welcome any professional insight. From an evolutionist professor ;)

oleq, bit of a angry ogre are we?, Well perhaps rather than getting angry and telling me to 'get lost', and since you don't, nor any other dogmatic neo-Darwinists, run this blog, perhaps as a 'physicist' you would be so kind as to tell me the exact 'non-local', beyond space and time, cause for quantum entanglement/information now found in life on a massive scale? Now this would be interesting to here your, as an atheist, non-local cause. Do you deny quantum non-locality for quantum entanglement? Do you buy into parallel, universes as Scott does, in which you hold there are 10^500 versions of you? Or do you just shout down and belittle anyone who disagrees with you because you have no coherent answer other than 'evolution did it!' no matter what the evidence says?:

Nobel laureate physicist that you sure won’t read on a Darwin pressure group Web siteExcerpt: Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a great theory, has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. Your protein defies the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken? Evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause! -Robert B. Laughlin, A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 168-69)http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/he-said-it-here%E2%80%99s-a-statement-from-a-nobel-laureate-physicist-that-you-sure-won%E2%80%99t-read-on-a-darwin-pressure-group-web-site/

Twenty-one more famous Nobel Prize winners who rejected Darwinism as an account of consciousness - Dr. VJ Torley - April 2012http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/twenty-one-more-famous-nobel-prize-winners-who-rejected-darwinism-as-an-account-of-consciousness/

Mind and Cosmos - Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False - Thomas Nagel - November 2012 (projected publication date) Excerpt: If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199919758.do

I understand your point, and don't disagree. But he easy to ignore,and basically harmless and seems to enjoy his notoriety. And of course your tell him to scram will only have the opposite effect. It is better to ignore than engage. But as you say it is a free world. No criticism intended

Nobel laureate physicist that you sure won’t read on a Darwin pressure group Web siteExcerpt: Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a great theory, has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. Your protein defies the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken? Evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause! -Robert B. Laughlin, A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 168-69)http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/he-said-it-here%E2%80%99s-a-statement-from-a-nobel-laureate-physicist-that-you-sure-won%E2%80%99t-read-on-a-darwin-pressure-group-web-site/

Twenty-one more famous Nobel Prize winners who rejected Darwinism as an account of consciousness - Dr. VJ Torley - April 2012http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/twenty-one-more-famous-nobel-prize-winners-who-rejected-darwinism-as-an-account-of-consciousness/

Quantum mind–body problemParallels between quantum mechanics and mind/body dualism were first drawn by the founders of quantum mechanics including Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Niels Bohr, and Eugene Wignerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind%E2%80%93body_problem

"It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality" -Eugene Wigner - (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) - received Nobel Prize in 1963 for 'Quantum Symmetries'

“No, I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”(Max Planck, father of quantum mechanics, as cited in de Purucker, Gottfried. 1940. The Esoteric Tradition. California: Theosophical University Press, ch. 13).

Here is a mathematician to boot:

The God of the Mathematicians – GoldmanExcerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” – Kurt Gödel – (Gödel is considered by many to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th century)http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians

Perhaps you want to go tell these guys to shut up and get lost? Myself, I tend to trust their opinion far more than yours, especially since you are so mean.

As David Deutsch points out in Chapter 12 of Beginning of Infinity, quantum physicists adopted a rule of thumb:

“Whenever a measurement is made, all the histories but one cease to exist. The surviving one is chosen at random, with the probability of each possible outcome being equal to the total measure of all the histories in which that outcome occurs.” The Beginning of Infinity, page 273

You might recognize this as the famous “collapse of the wave function” of the traditional Copenhagen interpretation.

And as Brian Greene points out in both Fabric of the Cosmos and The Hidden Reality, there is no mathematical justification for this rule of thumb.

and..

Many worlds, by contrast, simply accepts the mathematics as it is. The wave function does not collapse. Instead, we become part of the wave function, part of the probability it describes. We measure event A 98.6 % of the time because 98.6% of the time we find ourselves in an instance of the universe in which A occurs. The other 1.4% still exist, but we are forever separated from that outcome

Deutsch again in Chapter 12 (page 274)

“(Q)uantum theory (was) clearly describing some sort of physical process that brought about the outcomes of experiments. Physicists, both through professionalism and natural curiosity, could hardly help wondering about that process. But many of them tried not to. Most of them went on to train their students not to. This counteracted the scientific tradition of criticism in regard to quantum theory.”

and on page 276

“And in Dublin in 1952 Schrodinger gave a lecture in which at one point he jocularly warned his audience that what he was about to say might ‘seem lunatic’. It was that, when his equation seems to be describing several different histories, they are ‘not alternatives but all really happen simultaneously’ . . . Here is an eminent physicist joking that he might be considered mad. Why? For claiming that his own equation – the very one for which he had won the Nobel prize – might be true.”

My point here is not to prove that many worlds is correct. Instead, I want to point out that in some sense many worlds is the most straightforward and least strange interpretation of the most successful theory in the history of science. To me, this revelation came as quite a shock.

'I tentatively accept the consequences of such a theory, including that I would also be a multiversal object, which includes at least 10^500 versions of myself' - Scott - Many Worlds proponent http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/04/neuroscientist-most-seamless-illusions.html?showComment=1334583967799#c7217305678409346277

The MWT meets this criteria in ways that significantly differentiates itself from other interpretations of quantum mechanics, while still accepting the same observations. Specifically, it's deep, hard to vary, and has more explanatory power, despite being less complex, in that it does't introduce different, yet unknown laws of physics, which observers supposedly adhere to. It also resolves multiple paradoxes across multiple fields of science..

In other worlds, I do not think the MWT has been proven to be true using observations alone, but that it has withstood significant criticism, while having more informational content. As such, I think it represents the best explanation for quantum mechanics.

So, yes, I tentatively accept the consequences of such a theory, including that I would also be a multiversal object. which includes at least 10^500 versions of myself in other classical universes that follow the same rules as ours, in including the same laws of physics. The result of which represents a deterministic history, just like ours, except some other logical possible event occurred.

Born: And Scott, exactly how does 10^500 deterministic versions of you not lead to epistemological failure for your truth claims?

Gee born, why don't you spell it out for me, in detail.

Then again, that would require you to actually understand the subject at hand. And you've made it painfully clear elsewhere that you do not.

Example?

Born: 3. A photon qubit is a infinite dimensional function space that can 'theoretically be encoded with infinite information, and a 'non-interfered' image was indeed encoded onto a photon. 10^500 parallel universes cannot even begin to explain infinite dimensionality, nor can the 10^500 parallel universes explain 'non-interfered' image retention in the photon.

Except, if you understood the theory you're criticizing, you'd realize there are 10^500 universes in which the same experiment is taking place, but with slightly different results. As such, this does explain how a single photon can hold what appears to be an infinite amount of information.

Specifically, there are quantum algorithms that return more intermediate results than there are atoms in the universe. Exactly where are these intermediate results being computed, if not in 10^500 universes where the exact same calculation is being performed?

Scott, you can't even how just deterministic version of you can avoid epistemological failure! Much less 10^500 versions of you!;

Should You Trust the Monkey Mind? - Joe CarterExcerpt: Evolutionary naturalism assumes that our noetic equipment developed as it did because it had some survival value or reproductive advantage. Unguided evolution does not select for belief except insofar as the belief improves the chances of survival. The truth of a belief is irrelevant, as long as it produces an evolutionary advantage. This equipment could have developed at least four different kinds of belief that are compatible with evolutionary naturalism, none of which necessarily produce true and trustworthy cognitive faculties.http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/09/should-you-trust-the-monkey-mind

The following interview is sadly comical as a evolutionary psychologist realizes that neo-Darwinism can offer no guarantee that our faculties of reasoning will correspond to the truth, not even for the truth that he is purporting to give in the interview, (which begs the question of how was he able to come to that particular truthful realization, in the first place, if neo-Darwinian evolution were actually true?);

"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" - Charles Darwin - Letter To William Graham - July 3, 1881

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.” J. B. S. Haldane ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.

i.e. Scott, you simply have no justification in your worldview to make truth claims for reality! I really don't know how to make it any simpler for you to understand, but I guess in your worldview you really have no free will choice but to believe what your atoms tell you to believe.

Why should we expect attempts to correct him here any more successful?

But alas Scott, in your worldview the beliefs of all 10^500 versions of me are merely victims of the positions of the atoms in my brain. Thus I, at least this one of the 10^500 versions of me, have no choice but to think the conclusion of 10^500 Scotts is insane.

In a single deterministic universe, there is no "if" as the future is determined by the past. However, in the multiverse, there really are alternatives as quantum possibilities actually happen there.

This might not be what you think of as free will, but it's doesn't mean that you are determined to think I'm insane either.

In other words, you are a multiversial object which is quantized across universes, just like everything else - including your choices. You're simply not aware of the borns that think the non-MWI paradoxes of QM are "crazy", while the simpler MWT is not.

Well this one version of me thinks the one version of the 10^500 version of Scotts I'm talking to has lost all semblance of restrained logic in the multiverse somewhere, but I guess I have no choice in the matter but to think that thought since the 'illusion of free will' has made me think that hasn't it Scott (whichever one I'm talking to)?!?

This might not be what you think of as free will, but it's doesn't mean that you are determined to think I'm insane either.

Do you not understand?

Or, perhaps it's not that you cannot understand it, but you refuse to accept anything understanding of choice other than the particular dichotomy that suits your agenda? Just like you do with theories of non-locality in QM.

Born: (whichever [Scott] I'm talking to)?!?

Since communication cannot be transmitted between universes, you would obviously be talking to the Scott in your universe. If you actually understood the theory, you're realize this.

Yet, it would seem you can't even accurately, yet fallaciously appeal to ridicule correctly.

oleq, so you are a biological physicist? Good I have a few questions for you. If you answer just one of these you can earn yourself a Nobel prize. How did life first form? How did consciousness arise from non-living matter? Why can't purely material processes create a single functional protein? Why can't random neo-Darwinian processes presently create functional information whereas they are presupposed to have created functional information of unfathomed complexity in the past? Why are molecular machines 100% efficient, or close to 100% efficient, whereas human engineers can only dream of attaining 100% efficiency for man-made machines? Why is the programming in the DNA multilayered far past the ability of human software engineers to program as such?

oleq, I'm pretty sure when you knock out that little problem of life arising from dead matter, then the rest should fall pretty easily for you,, and bring you untold fame a fortune as a unrivaled scientist of staggering genius,,, But I let you in on a little secret oleg, I already know someone who brought life to what was dead.

THE EVENT HORIZON (Space-Time Singularity) OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN. - Isabel Piczek - Particle PhysicistExcerpt: We have stated before that the images on the Shroud firmly indicate the total absence of Gravity. Yet they also firmly indicate the presence of the Event Horizon. These two seemingly contradict each other and they necessitate the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity that had the capacity to solve the above paradox.http://shroud3d.com/findings/isabel-piczek-image-formation

Isabel Piczek is a religious artist but also a 'Hungarian trained' particle physicist, specialized in TIME.http://shroud3d.com/findings/isabel-piczek-image-formation

Myself, I looked closely at the 3-D holographic images of the Shroud that have recently come out and I can see no flattening of the buttocks or of the back. Which is one of the main pieces of evidence Dr. Piczek cites from the shroud to support her case. And IF, and that's a big IF loaded with each person's personal prejudice, and IF one grants the authenticity of the Shroud, which I do grant, then one is sorely pressed to explain the lack of flattening, as well as explain the equal image intensity on both front and back, without resorting to 'the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity' that formed a sigularity.

She may be "Hungarian trained" (whatever that means), but she left no mark whatsoever in the scientific literature. And given the nonsense she writes on her website, to which you linked, I wouldn't expect her to have done any physics whatsoever. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

oleq, your probably right. I bet she is one of those ignorant creationists to that thinks God is the source of all life and that scientists will never create life in the lab! Thanks for the heads up oleg, she's clearly delusional!!. But seriously, as I said before:

'IF, and that's a big IF loaded with each person's personal prejudice, and IF one grants the authenticity of the Shroud, which I do grant, then one is sorely pressed to explain the lack of flattening, as well as explain the equal image intensity on both front and back, without resorting to 'the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity' that formed a singularity."

further note:

Notes on The Authenticity of the Shroud of TurinExcerpt:

Particle Radiation from the Body – M. Antonacci, A. C. LindExcerpt: The Shroud’s frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body. The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image. Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth’s frontal and dorsal body images.https://docs.google.com/document/d/19tGkwrdg6cu5mH-RmlKxHv5KPMOL49qEU8MLGL6ojHU/edit?hl=en_US

Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural – December 2011Excerpt: After years of work trying to replicate the colouring on the shroud, a similar image has been created by the scientists. However, they only managed the effect by scorching equivalent linen material with high-intensity ultra violet lasers, undermining the arguments of other research, they say, which claims the Turin Shroud is a medieval hoax. Such technology, say researchers from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Enea), was far beyond the capability of medieval forgers, whom most experts have credited with making the famous relic. “The results show that a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin,” they said. And in case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct marks, the Enea report spells it out: “This degree of power cannot be reproduced by any normal UV source built to date.”http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-say-turin-shroud-is-supernatural-6279512.html

Well oleg regardless of whether you accept her physics degree from a Hungarian University or not is really besides the point isn't it? Clearly anyone who disagrees with your preferred materialistic party line of how all life came to be on earth must be delusional because everybody KNOWS 'evolution did it'; As Dr. Hunter's opening OP makes clear. “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” It is simply unthinkable that life could possibly come from God as far as 'real' science is concerned, and thus for anybody to question 'science', (as materialist have defined science a-priori to give them their desired atheistic conclusion), then by default for anyone to deny 'science' is to be delusional.

I'm funny to see the Darinists protesting that you have misrepresented their position, when, clearly this is their position. They pretend to be open minded and simply following evidence wherever it leads, but as soon as someone floats the idea of a non-natural explanation for the origin of life and the universe, that person gets insulted and attacked.

I find it far more plausible to believe that a supernatural Designer (specifically the God of the Bible) created all of natural reality, including life, rather than to believe that all reality spontaneously popped into existence uncaused out of nothing.

The fact that others find this point of view so threatening is indicative of the hostility and contempt they hold for God, which is also predicted in the scriptures.

The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.

Consider that they're two separate images burnt into the cloth separately by the same "occult" artist, which would also explain the slightly different proportions in general.

'IF, and that's a big IF loaded with each person's personal prejudice, and IF one grants the authenticity of the Shroud, which I do grant, then one is sorely pressed to explain the lack of flattening, as well as explain the equal image intensity on both front and back, without resorting to 'the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity' that formed a singularity."

If you want to speculate on artists painting the Shroud, a speculation I personally find severely lacking in substantiating evidence, that's fine, but granting my caveat, which I find a very reasonable caveat, then Piczek's hypothesis of a 'event horizon' within space-time explains all the characteristics of the Shroud satisfactorily.

The Case for Christ's Resurrection - Shroud Of Turin video (hologram background story starts around the 26 minute mark)http://www.itbn.org/index/detail/lib/People/sublib/Dame+Isabel+Piczek/ec/xkdWUzMzrosKwxHTja--Qv3Nj2CpdyTl

If you want to speculate on artists painting the Shroud, a speculation I personally find severely lacking in substantiating evidence...

That's not what I said. I said burning, not painting. In other words you could burn image on it like you could press an iron on your clothes or use a sculpted form.

The reason I would be suspicious of the Shroud is its history and the work typical to occult societies who used such things to amass wealth and so on. It may be what you think it is. If it is not then it must be admitted that it is a masterful work of occult/hidden art and artifice. Interesting to note that any relic or idol can be manufactured if the technique is sophisticated enough given that they are all just material objects. But in any event, the Shroud is much better than Piltdown and the sort of things woven into modern mythologies such as the relics and bits of bone upon which creation myths have been and can continue to be built. People are ignorant spiritually these days, especially the very people who set themselves up as the priests of knowledge. At least the Jesuits and so on knew that they were deceiving people and profiting from it. These days it seems like the priests of knowledge/scientia are actually dumb enough to think that their myths are becoming progressively true. Ironically, that idea itself traces back to their own mythologies.

Well mynym, florescence imaging ruled out burning/scorching as to how the image was made. In fact that is one of the first hypothesis that the STURP team ruled out back in the late 70's when they went to examine it. Like I said, my personal opinion is that the Shroud is authentic.

mynym once again the image was not formed by burning scorching., perhaps I can recommend some books for you that go through fairly exhaustive detail on the Shroud?

Portrait of Jesus?: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin: by Frank C. Tribbe - 2006http://www.amazon.com/Portrait-Jesus-Illustrated-Story-Shroud/dp/1557788545

The Blood and the Shroud - New Evidence That the World's Most Sacred Relic Is Real by Ian Wilson - 1999http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Shroud-Evidence-Worlds-Sacred/dp/0684855291/ref=sip_rech_dp_4

The Shroud Of Turin: An Adventure Of Discovery by Mary and Alan Whagner - 1998http://www.amazon.com/Shroud-Turin-Adventure-Discovery/dp/1577360796

The Turin Shroud by Ian WilsonAll the expert evidence gathered by the official research team is pretty much presented in this text....also,, presentation of the evidence that traces the Shroud back to the 1st Century.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Turin-Shroud-Ian-Wilson/dp/0140050647

Bibliography of Published STURP Papershttp://www.shroud.com/78papers.htm

The problem with Dhobzansky's quote is that nature is NOT arranged so as to appear that evolution occurred. This is an artefact imposed on it by a secularist mind set which WANTS the evidence to point to evolution. But it doesn't.

The evidence viewed with an open mind is of sudden appearance of complex organisms followed by stasis and extinctions, and or irreducible complexity, genetic entropy, natural selection as a conservative mechanism, the failure of random mutations (neo-Darwinism's only theoretical creative mechanism)to produce new meaningful genetic code, and essentially fixed species. Oh, and God spoke to us through His Son Jesus as evidenced by fulfilled prophecy, miracles and bodily resurection.

This is an artefact imposed on it by a secularist mind set which WANTS the evidence to point to evolution.

It's not really secularist. Cornelius has alluded to this fact a number of times, including in the title of this post. To the point that one might wonder if he has some secret knowledge himself. Saying so directly might be throwing the pearls of wisdom before swine... or maybe he's just recognizing a pattern here or there.

The mythology and memes of "order out of chaos" were actually contained in secret societies which trace their origins and occult/hidden knowledge of the mysteries back to Babylon, symbolically speaking. And it was the secret societies like Freemasonry that established the Royal Society to establish a "cabal" of peer review so that new creation myths could be established among ignorant and stupid scientists through "black balling."

Note that the Darwin's were members of secret societies and the memes which descended to Darwin just happen by happenstance to match the babble typical to Gnosticism. People have always liked memes and mythology of this sort because they can imagine that once they or their descendents reach the all seeing eye of knowledge at the top of the pyramid that they will be as gods.

In any event, it isn't exactly secularism or pure worldliness so the same type of things keep emerging from chaos by happenstance. That's merely what those closer to the bottom of pyramid scheme of the sort the Darwin's were involved in are led to believe.

...perhaps I can recommend some books for you that go through fairly exhaustive detail on the Shroud?

Maybe you can just quote the relevant details... isn't it true that the Shroud is disproportionate? It seems to me that the best explanation for that is not an absence of gravity or whatever else but that the imprinting was not made by a body laying on it.